President Biden would have complete control over the millions of dollars raised by his presidential campaign if he decided to drop out of the race against former President Trump, campaign finance experts told The Hill.
Biden is facing increasing pressure to back down after a poor debate performance last week, during which he appeared to stare blankly into space and at times struggled to string sentences together.
Biden’s campaign and the White House have rejected calls for the 81-year-old president to drop out of the race, saying his performance over the past three and a half years in office is more important than performance on a debate stage. .
But as support for Biden among Democrats wavers, questions are emerging around what would happen to his campaign committee’s tens of millions of dollars, Biden for President, if the president departs for another candidate.
Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) became the first House Democrat to call for Biden to step down on Tuesday, and although Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has redoubled her support for the president, she told MSNBC on Tuesday that it’s only fair for voters to ask whether the president has a condition or whether his debate performance was just “an episode.”
The Biden campaign said there was $240 million in the Biden-Harris Team war chest — which includes the campaign, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and joint fundraising committees — at the end of June.
But neither the campaign nor the DNC responded to The Hill’s questions about how much of that total was parked in the president’s campaign versus the party’s national committee. Although the DNC would still control party committee funds, Biden would have control over his campaign committee’s share of that overall total, although the exact breakdown will only be communicated to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) later this month.
The Biden campaign said it had nearly $91.6 million in cash on hand as of May 31 in its most recent report to the FEC, while the DNC said it had nearly $65.2 million.
Campaign finance lawyers said Biden’s campaign, and the president himself, would have a number of avenues available for campaign committee money if he dropped out or was unable to run — but they would all go through Biden.
“Even if Biden is not the nominee, he would have the authority to direct his campaign treasurer on what to do with the remaining funds — whether it be a full transfer to the DNC, to a super PAC supporting the new nominee, or vetted up to the limits of contribution to several other campaigns with balance to the DNC or a super PAC,” Steve Roberts, partner at Holtzman Vogel and former general counsel for Vivek Ramaswamy’s 2024 presidential campaign, told The Hill.
Tom Moore, a former adviser and chief of staff to Democratic FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub, told The Hill that “the money could go a lot of places.”
“Everything could go to [Vice President Kamala] Harris, it could all go to the [Democratic National Committee (DNC)]. Or anything in between,” said Moore, who is now a senior fellow at the left-leaning think tank Center for American Progress.
Last week’s debate unexpectedly put Harris at the forefront, and Democrats have been pondering whether she would be a stronger candidate than Biden. Although the vice president has said she fully supports Biden’s re-election bid and is not seeking to replace him, she is his likely successor, although she will likely face competition.
Harris is listed as a candidate on the Biden for President’s Account. AND under federal law“any campaign custodian designated by the main campaign committee of a political party’s candidate for president shall be the campaign custodian of that political party’s candidate for vice president.”
Contributions to other federal candidates or committees would be subject to contribution limits. But “since Harris is a candidate associated with Biden’s political committee, she would not actually receive any remaining funds,” Moore explained.
“As long as Harris becomes the nominee, campaign funds can seed her new campaign and be spent in the same way as if Biden were the nominee,” Roberts said.
NBC News reported this weekend that campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez told a group of Biden backers that if he dropped out, most of the campaign’s remaining money would go to Harris and some would go to the DNC, although she has emphasized that Biden does not intend to step aside.
Neither the Biden campaign nor the DNC responded to requests to confirm the report.
Whether Harris is the nominee or not, remaining campaign cash on hand could also go to charity, the DNC or a super PAC, which can raise and spend unlimited sums of money as long as it does not coordinate with the candidate it supports or opposes.
“The money can be used for ‘any lawful purpose’ except personal use,” Moore said.
Roberts highlighted that former Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg “made exactly this move after dropping out of the race [in 2020]and the FEC blessed this as permitted.
The FEC last summer rejected complaints that Bloomberg violated contribution limits when his campaign was moved US$18 million to the DNC after investing more than a billion dollars of his own money in his primary run, noting the “unusual” circumstances of this situation.
The Biden campaign did not report any donations or loans from the candidate. The vast majority of donations — 95% — were less than $200 during the second quarter of the year, according to the campaign.
This could make it complicated and time-consuming to refund donors who may be disappointed with his debate performance or if he walks away and wants his money back.
If Biden remains in the race or Harris becomes the nominee, Moore said, “The campaign is not obligated to give anything back.”
“It is completely at the discretion of the candidate,” he added.
If neither Biden nor Harris are the nominee, Roberts said “the campaign would be required to refund designated general election contributions.” Other experts were less certain about this distinction.
If a candidate other than Biden or Harris were at the top of the Democratic ticket, their campaign would start from scratch.
“I believe they could probably raise a lot of money very quickly as it would be a true emergency (and not just a hysterical end-of-the-month appeal in all caps that we see every month…!),” Moore wrote.
That said, Moore noted that “any money that is in a dark money group or Super PAC could be redirected to the new candidate’s effort, no problem.”
Biden’s top reelection super PAC, Future Forward USA, reported almost US$92.4 million cash available on May 31st. Outside groups supporting Biden have reported raising a total of US$ 158.2 million so far this election cycle, according to the nonprofit OpenSecrets, which tracks nonpartisan political money, though that number is expected to increase when the committees submit their July quarterly and monthly reports to the FEC later this month.
“That’s one of the things that’s really challenging, because there’s already this infrastructure built to support the respective ticket, and so they can definitely be distributed among a large group of entities,” said Ann Ravel, a former Democratic FEC commissioner, to The Hill. .
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