(ConservativeInsider.org) – Now that President Biden has announced that he is no longer seeking re-election, many have begun to ask what will happen to the $91 million dollars his campaign has raised so far.
The Biden campaign filed its last campaign report with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on June 20th, stating that they had $91.5 million “cash on hand.”
Since Harris was also on the ticket as Biden’s Vice President and they shared a campaign committee, she will be eligible to continue using the funds the campaign currently holds. Their campaign committee submitted paperwork to the FEC within hours of Biden’s withdrawal announcement, noting that they changed their committee’s name to “Harris for President.” The campaign also included a letter stating that Harris is their new candidate.
Dara Lindenbaum, the Federal Election Commissioner, and Hans von Spakovsky, a conservative election law expert, have publicly stated that Harris would be able to use the funds donated to the Biden campaign, as she was registered on the ticket as his Vice President candidate.
However, Sean Cooksey, who was appointed by President Trump as the chairman of the FEC, said transferring all the assets from the Biden campaign to the Harris one will be “really complicated” and will likely need to go through a process. Cooksey believes there will likely be challenges from the courts to the process, as doing so is unprecedented in modern politics.
Other Republicans have pushed back on Cooksey’s comments, including Steve Roberts, former general counsel to Vivek Ramaswamy, who called Cooksey’s interpretation “wishful thinking.” Roberts added that the short amount of time between now and the general election will make it unlikely that any challenges to the transfer will be successful.
While some have wondered if donors will be able to get their contributions back should they not want to support his successor, there is no law that requires campaigns to return donations should a donor want a refund. However, if the Biden campaign wants to refund donations to donors who request one, they are allowed to do so at their discretion.
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