President Biden will have full control over the millions of dollars his presidential campaign raised if he chooses to drop out of the race against former President Trump. A campaign finance expert told The Hill:
Biden is facing growing pressure to back down after a poor performance in last week’s debate, in which he stared into space and at times struggled to connect sentences.
Biden’s campaign and the White House have pushed back against calls for the 81-year-old president to drop out of the race, arguing his record as president over the past three and a half years outweighs one performance on the debate stage.
But as Biden’s Democratic support weakens, questions are swirling about what will happen to the tens of millions of dollars poured into his campaign committee, Biden for President, if the president steps down for another candidate.
Rep. Lloyd Doggett (R-Texas) became the first House Democrat to call for Biden to withdraw on Tuesday, and Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has stepped up her support for the president, but told MSNBC on Tuesday that it’s fair for voters to ask whether the president has some kind of medical condition or if his debate performance was just a “one-off.”
The Biden campaign said the Biden-Harris campaign, which includes the campaign, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and joint fundraising committees, had $240 million in total as of the end of June.
Neither the campaign nor the DNC responded to questions from The Hill about how much of that total went to the presidential campaign and how much to the national party committees. The DNC will continue to manage the committees’ funds, but Biden will control the campaign committee’s share of the total, the exact breakdown of which will not be reported to the Federal Election Commission until later this month.
The Biden campaign said in its most recent filing with the FEC that it had about $91.6 million in cash on hand as of May 31, while the Democratic National Committee said it had about $65.2 million.
Campaign finance lawyers said the Biden campaign and the president himself have several avenues for raising funds for his campaign committee if he were to withdraw from the presidential race or be otherwise unable to run, but they would all be routed through Biden.
“Even if Biden is not the nominee, he has the authority to tell his campaign treasurer what to do with the remaining funds: either move it all to the DNC, move it to a super PAC supporting a new candidate, or give it in chunks up to the contribution limits to other campaigns and donate the rest to the DNC or a super PAC,” Steve Roberts, a partner at Holtzman Vogel and former general counsel to 2024 presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, told The Hill.
“This money can be used in multiple places,” Tom Moore, a former counsel and chief of staff to Democratic FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub, told The Hill.
“It’s all [Vice President] Harris, that’s all [DNC]… or something in between,” said Moore, now a senior fellow at the left-leaning think tank Center for American Progress.
Democrats have been considering whether Ms. Harris could be a better candidate than Mr. Biden since she was unexpectedly thrust to the fore in last week’s debate. Though Vice President Harris fully supports Mr. Biden’s reelection and has said she is not seeking to replace him, she is likely to be Biden’s successor, though she would likely face a challenger.
Harris is listed as a candidate Biden’s account. and Under Federal Law“The campaign fund repository designated by the primary campaign committee of a party’s presidential candidate shall be the campaign fund repository of that party’s vice presidential candidate.”
Donation limits apply to other federal candidates and committees, but “because Harris is a candidate on Biden’s political committee, she will not receive any surplus funds,” Moore explained.
“If Harris becomes the nominee, those funds could be put into her new campaign, and could be spent in the same way they would be spent if Biden were the nominee,” Roberts said.
NBC News reported this weekend that campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez told a group of Biden donors that if Biden were to pull out, most of the campaign’s remaining funds would go to Harris, with some going to the Democratic National Committee, though she stressed that Biden has no plans to step aside.
Neither the Biden campaign nor the Democratic National Committee responded to requests to confirm the report.
Regardless of whether Harris becomes the candidate, the campaign will have some cash left. You can also go A charity, the Democratic National Committee, or a super PAC can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money as long as they don’t align themselves with the candidate they support or oppose.
“The money can be used for ‘any lawful purpose,’ except for personal use,” Moore said.
Roberts noted that former Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg “did exactly this after dropping out of the race.” [in 2020]and the FEC approved it as permissible.”
Last summer’s FEC The complaint was dismissed Bloomberg violated contribution limits when he donated funds to his campaign. $18 million After spending more than $1 billion of his own money on the primary election, Trump called the situation “anomaly” and reported it to the Democratic National Committee.
The Biden campaign does not report any donations or loans from candidates, and said the vast majority of donations (95%) in the second quarter of this year were less than $200.
That could make refunds to donors who were disappointed with his debate performance, or who want their money back if he steps down, complicated and time-consuming.
Moore said that if Biden continues to campaign or Harris becomes the nominee, “the campaign will not have to give anything back.”
“It’s entirely at the discretion of the candidate,” he added.
Roberts said that if neither Biden nor Harris becomes the nominee, “the campaigns would be required to return contributions that were designated for the general election.” Other experts were less sure about the distinction.
If a candidate other than Biden or Harris comes out on top in the Democratic Party, their campaign will have to start from scratch.
“Because this is a real emergency, they will likely be able to raise a lot of money immediately (not the hysterical, capitalized, end-of-month fundraisers we see every month!),” Moore wrote.
That said, Moore noted that “money sitting in dark money groups and super PACs could easily be redirected to support new candidates.”
Future Forward USA, the main super PAC working for Biden’s reelection, Approximately $92.4 million As of May 31, the cash holdings were $1,000. Outside groups supporting Biden Total: $158.2 million So far this election cycle, that figure stands at 1 million euros, according to Open Secrets, a nonprofit that tracks nonpartisan political finance, but that figure is expected to jump once the commission submits its quarterly and July monthly reports to the FEC later this month.
“That’s one of the things that’s really difficult, because there’s an infrastructure already built to support each candidate and ensure that they’re able to distribute money to large groups of organizations,” Ann Lovell, a former Democratic FEC commissioner, told The Hill.
