Here’s What Will Happen to Biden's Campaign Funds After He Dropped Out of White House Race

Joe Biden stepped down from the 2024 presidential race on Sunday afternoon and endorsed his running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris, instead. In light of the same, a pertinent question arises— what will happen to the donations acquired by the Biden campaign? Biden's team reportedly had $240 million in cash earlier this month compared to former President Donald Trump who had $331 million at hand in the second quarter. 

Campaign finance rules make it difficult for Biden to access funds now that he has ended his reelection bid. Saurav Ghosh, the director of federal campaign finance reform at the Campaign Legal Center, gave a statement clarifying that it now completely depends on the candidate who will represent the party officially. "If Harris remains on the ticket, as either the presidential or vice-presidential candidate, the new ticket would maintain access to all the funds in the campaign committee," as reported by US News. He explained that this was because Biden and Harris share a campaign committee.

However, if it was not Harris carrying the torch forward, the funds would have been difficult to retrieve as they were acquired under her and Biden's names. Using it for any other Democratic candidate, hence, wouldn't be ethical. "Biden’s campaign would have to offer to refund the money to donors, who could then contribute to the new candidate’s campaign," which is a humongous task.

Alternatively, Ghosh suggested that another legal option would have been to "transfer an unlimited amount to the DNC, which could then spend the money supporting the new presidential nominee, and up to $32.3 million of that spending could be coordinated with the new nominee." According to Vox, the campaign finance laws have a limit of only $2,000 per election for transfers from one candidate to another. 

Taking into consideration that Harris had no individual campaign, there is a great probability that she would run in the race and not let the money go down the drain. Biden also had several joint fundraising committees. One of them includes the Biden Victory Fund, which collected around $40 million according to OpenSecrets. Considering it was a joint agreement, deliberation could help in transferring the money to the upcoming candidate. Other PACs like Future Forward also hold the freedom to change their allocations as they are independent of the campaigns. 

According to NBC News, Kenneth Gross, a senior political law counsel at Akin Gump said, "This has this unique twist to it with Harris still being a part of the campaign and being considered part of the campaign from the get-go." He opined, "Both candidates are on the account. And I would think that she would be able to use the money if she is running for president. She would be the only one that could do that."