What happens to Biden’s campaign cash if he drops out
by Taylor Giorno - 07/04/24 6:00 AM ET
President Biden would have total control over the millions of dollars raised by his presidential campaign if he chooses to drop out of the race against former President Trump, campaign finance experts told The Hill.
Biden is facing growing pressure to step back after a poor debate performance last week, during which he appeared to stare blankly into space and struggled to string together sentences at times.
The Biden campaign and White House have pushed back on calls for the 81-year-old president to drop out of the race, saying his performance over the last three and a half years on the job is more important than one performance on a debate stage.
But as Biden’s support among Democrats falters, questions are swirling around what would happen to the tens of millions of dollars in his campaign committee, Biden for President, should the president step aside for another nominee.
Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) became the first House Democrat to call for Biden to drop out Tuesday, and while Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has doubled down on her support for the president, she told MSNBC Tuesday that it’s a fair question for voters to ask if the president has a condition or if his debate performance was just “an episode.”
The Biden campaign said there was $240 million in the Team Biden-Harris war chest — which include the campaign, Democratic National Committee (DNC) and joint fundraising committees — at the end of June.
But neither the campaign nor the DNC responded to questions from The Hill about how much of that total was parked in the president’s campaign versus the national party committee. While the DNC would still control the party committee funds, Biden would have control over his campaign committee’s slice of that overall total, although the exact breakdown won’t be reported to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) until 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 almost $65.2 million.
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https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4753737-biden-drop-out-rumors-campaign-funding/
