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That's an oversimplification. The Biden campaign has around $240 million on hand. If Harris becomes the presidential nominee, her campaign inherits the entire $240 mil.
If another person becomes the nominee, the Biden campaign could refund contributions so they can be sent to the new campaign directly. Otherwise, they are permitted to transfer as much as they want to the DNC.
But the DNC can't spend the money however they like. They can spend an unlimited amount supporting the new candidate independently (running ads, oppo research, etc), but there is a limit to how much they can spend in coordination with the campaign. For example, if they rent a venue for the candidate, that must be coordinated with the campaign and therefore counts towards coordinated expenditures. The coordinated expenditure limit per presidential cycle is $32.3 million.
And if they want to give directly to the campaign, that is even more limited. A political committee can only give $5,000 dollars per campaign per election cycle. Anything more than that would have to go to some kind of Super PAC which also has limits in what it can do in direct coordination with a campaign (though it gets fuzzier because Super PACs are tantamount to political money laundering in my opinion).
So no, if the DNC gets the money, they can't just give it to whatever campaign they like. The limitations are not due to any contractual obligation when donating the funds, but rather US political rules on how presidential campaigns are allowed to receive money.
Source: https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2024-07-19/what-happens-to-bidens-campaign-money-if-he-drops-out
Hmm.
That'd have to happen extremely quickly. If they don't have some kind of mechanism already in place for getting approval from the donor, it seems likely to me that they wouldn't have time to set something up.
The US typically runs fairly long campaigns, the whole election year. Not all countries work like that. IIRC, the UK does a (limited) three month campaign cycle. But even by those standards, this is really short. There are about three-and-a-half months left before the election. They haven't even selected an alternative, much less had someone spend the money to put together a campaign, much less actually embark on it.
Also, US campaigns are very large compared to most countries. I don't know what total spending is like this time around, but I remember that when Trump ran against Hillary in 2016, each spent about $1 billion in their campaign. If you have to do that, you'd have to select someone, set up and complete all the fund transfer stuff, pay someone to devise a campaign, and then implement the campaign -- and this is on the order of a billion-dollar project -- in about a hundred days.
I agree. As much as I want to see an open debate between potential candidates, narrowing it down to a single alternative and have a vote whether to switch to that person or stay with Biden... the financial side makes that idea seem unrealistic.
I think the most viable option is to have Biden step down and Harris step up. As much as Kamala Harris is not my favorite politician, I think we all understand this is not about having someone we like in the White House, it's about ensuring someone with plans to dismantle democracy does not get the chance to bring those plans to fruition.
I'm with you, but can't they just donate it to a super PAC? Isn't that basically their whole point - to launder campaign contributions?
The red tape Super PACs get around concerns how much money can be received. While a presidential campaign can only receive $3,300 from an individual, and a traditional PAC can receive up to $5,000, a Super PAC can receive unlimited donations from both individuals and corporations. That's the money laundering part - it allows the super rich to put unlimited money toward a political cause even though the system was originally designed to prevent this.
But the official name for Super PACs is "Independent-expenditure-only political committee". So, while they are allowed to receive unlimited funds, they cannot give it to a campaign or do any spending in coordination with a campaign (though how many Super PACs strictly follow the no coordination rule is hard to quantify).
Essentially, the DNC giving the money to a Super PAC would be similar to if they kept the money and did the independent political expenditures themselves. The difference being that they would lose control over what independent expenditures the money goes towards.