Funding Sources for U.S. Presidential Campaigns: Who Contributes?

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In the lead-up to the 2024 U.S. presidential election, President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and former President Donald Trump have each raised over $1 billion from various partisan interest groups as of October 29, 2024. According to OpenSecrets data, Harris and her campaign were particularly effective in fundraising, with her official campaign committee surpassing the $1 billion mark just days before the November 5 vote.

While some bipartisan groups support multiple candidates, a Statista chart highlights only contributions from organizations or individuals backing either Harris or Trump. Notably, Trump's campaign heavily depends on funding from super PACs. The term "super" denotes that contributions to these committees are less regulated, allowing donations to exceed the annual limit of $5,000 per donor.

Although super PACs are theoretically independent and their spending is "not made in cooperation, consultation or concert with, or at the request or suggestion of, any candidate, or his or her authorized committees or agents, or a political party committee or its agents," the reality often deviates from this notion. For instance, Make America Great Again Inc has spent approximately $323 million of the nearly $331 million it raised to support Donald Trump and oppose his Republican primary rivals as well as President Biden. The largest donor, Thomas Mellon, heir to one of America’s wealthiest families, contributed $125 million. The second-largest Trump-supporting super PAC is Elon Musk's America PAC, with SpaceX contributing $75 million from a total of $146 million raised.

Conversely, the Biden-Harris campaign garnered significant funds from outside the official campaign committee through so-called carey committees. These committees function as a hybrid between super PACs and regular PACs, maintaining two accounts—one for unlimited donations and spending and another that adheres to stricter limits. Approximately $485 million of the $544 million raised by carey committees came from Future Forward USA and American Bridge 21st Century. Future Forward USA received contributions from various unions and the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Greylock Partners and has faced accusations of accepting substantial secret donations towards the end of the 2020 presidential election. American Bridge 21st Century, a smaller entity, counts among its donors the organization of the same name, which claims to be "the largest research, tracking, and rapid response operation in the Democratic Party," along with Silicon Valley's Sequoia Capital, which has also donated to the Trump campaign.

Following President Biden's announcement to step down from his reelection campaign and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris as the new Democratic candidate, questions arose among Republicans about Harris's ability to access the hundreds of millions accumulated by the Biden campaign. Many experts, including Daniel I. Weiner, director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Elections & Government Program, and Nicholas Stephanopoulos, Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law at Harvard, assert that Harris is permitted to use these funds, as she ran on a joint ticket with Biden.

However, there is no precedent in U.S. history for a sitting president to withdraw from the reelection race and hand over the candidacy to their vice president, raising concerns about established practices versus clear legal guidelines. According to Stephanopoulos, the FEC is still addressing official complaints related to the 2016 election, making it unlikely that any ruling preventing Harris from utilizing Biden’s campaign funds will occur before the November election.

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Source: Statista‍