WASHINGTON – The aggressive fund-raising that produced record spending in the 2004 presidential race won’t stop with the election. President Bush’s finance team will now look to raise millions from businesses and other big donors to finance inauguration festivities.

Inaugurations are among the last avenues in presidential politics open to corporate giving. For Mr. Bush’s inaugural galas in 2001, his fund-raising committee collected nearly $40 million, much of it in $100,000 donations from companies that lobby the government.

A 2002 law that banned national party committees and presidential and congressional candidates from raising corporate, union, and unlimited donations didn’t apply those broad restrictions to inaugural fund-raising. The law prohibits foreigners from giving to inaugural committees, but others can contribute in unlimited amounts.

“Inaugural committee activities remain one of the few areas where corporate funds can play a central role,” said Federal Election Commissioner Michael Toner, a Republican who was on the Bush campaign’s legal team in 2000 before joining the FEC.

Inauguration financing isn’t the only new fund-raising getting under way. Even before Tuesday’s election, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was inviting donors to take part in a January ski weekend at a Colorado resort, open to those whose political action committees have given the DCCC $15,000 this year and have pledged to do the same next year.

Senator Brownback, a Republican of Kansas, planned a hunting excursion with contributors November 20 in Kansas for $2,500 per person, with donations going to his political action committee. Senator Smith, a Republican of Oregon, is inviting donors who give $1,500 or more to take part in his fourth annual “First Tracks Ski Trip” in Deer Valley, Utah, on December 4.

The fresh fund-raising follows an election in which nearly all the higher-spending congressional candidates won.

In the House, about 96% of the biggest spenders – mostly incumbents – prevailed, according to an Associated Press review of the latest campaign finance data the candidates filed with the Federal Election Commission. In the Senate, about 94% of those who spent the most money won.

The percentages were similar to the margins in 2002.

The high spenders who didn’t fare well generally were those who bankrolled their own campaigns. None of the candidates who tapped enough of their own money to trigger a feature of the 2002 law that allows opponents to accept bigger donations won on Tuesday. They included beer baron and Colorado GOP Senate candidate Pete Coors and former junk-bond trader E.J. Pipkin, a Republican who challenged Maryland Democratic Senator Mikulski.

The most expensive Senate race was another of the handful of cases where big spending didn’t pay off. Senator Daschle, a Democrat of South Dakota, the Senate minority leader, lost to Republican John Thune despite spending nearly $6 million more than Mr. Thune as of mid-October, according to the most recent figures available.

Likewise, in the contest for an open Senate seat in Oklahoma, Republican Tom Coburn defeated Democrat Brad Carson after starting the last two weeks of the campaign about $1.5 million behind in spending.

In all, House and Senate candidates competing in the general election spent at least $712 million this election cycle, up about 15% from 2002, an FEC analysis found.