In the, US political campaign spending during presidential elections can amount to billions. But who actually raises and controls these large amounts of money? Jen Heerwig gives an overview of campaign finance in the US, writing that the super PACs and hybrid committees, which can accept unlimited donations, control a significant share of the money spent and raised in presidential races. These committees, she writes, are known for creating attack ads that target their opponent and to support the messaging of candidates’ campaigns. As the November election approaches, we should expect these committees to play an even greater role in the presidential race. 

• This article is part of ‘The 2024 Elections’ series curated by Peter Finn (Kingston University). Ahead of the 2024 election, this series is exploring US elections at the state and national level. If you are interested in contributing to the series, contact Peter Finn (p.finn@kingston.ac.uk).

American presidential campaigns are some of the most expensive political contests in the world. In 2020, the Biden campaign raised and spent over $1 billion. This compares to the “merely” tens of millions of dollars spent on the average United States House or Senate race. With these hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars raised, presidential campaigns blanket the airwaves with all manner of advertisements to showcase the candidate’s good character, exemplary policy track record, and vision for America. As voters, we often experience this barrage of television advertisements, radio spots, and email solicitations during a presidential race as coming from the same source—the candidates and their campaign organizations. But, behind the scenes, a contemporary presidential campaign is a complex ensemble of players. Funding a competitive presidential campaign is best thought of as the world’s most expensive team sport.

The candidates only raise and control some of the money

Perhaps counterintuitively, of the billions of dollars that will be spent to win the White House in 2024, only a portion of that money will be directly controlled by the candidate and her/his primary campaign committee. While presidential campaign committees (like Harris for President or Donald J. Trump for President 2024) still play a primary role in doing the difficult work of persuading voters to turn out to the polls, the field of presidential fundraising has shaped up to include key outside players like super political action committees or “super PACs” (which are also known as independent expenditure-only committees), and their close cousins, hybrid (or Carey) committees.

Spurred by a series of precedent-shattering court decisions, super PACs and hybrid committees may accept donations of unlimited size if their activities remain nominally “uncoordinated” with candidates’ campaigns. That is, a significant share of the money spent and raised in contemporary presidential races is not controlled by the candidates themselves, even if that money is used to promote a candidate. Figure 1 shows the amounts that candidate campaigns versus super PACs and hybrids have spent in the past two presidential races. Although presidential candidates themselves still control the biggest slice of money, outside spenders like super PACs are close seconds (see Figure 1).

Figure 1 – Presidential election spending by committee type 

The different roles of campaign committees

Research suggests that the division of labor in a presidential race is often something like this (especially in a general, rather than primary election). A candidate’s primary campaign has a committee that is tasked with “branding” the candidate and disseminating their policy platform. On the other hand, super PACs and hybrid committees often devote more of their considerable resources to, put bluntly, doing a candidate’s dirty work. Super PACs and other outside spenders are known for crafting inflammatory negative attack advertisements that target their opponent to buttress the more positive messaging of a candidate’s campaign. (For instance, the Trump/Vance official campaign committee recently debuted this advertisement while the primary Trump super PAC ran this one.)

“Get Your Roll On” (CC BY 2.0) by ccPixs.com

In the 2024 presidential races, both presidential candidates have primary campaign committees and a network of allied super PACs and hybrid committees fundraising on their behalf. Official fundraising numbers for the tumultuous month of July will be reported at the end of August, but we can still see how the race has been shaping up through the early part of summer. On the Democratic side, the campaign for president features an official campaign committee now called Harris for President (formerly Biden for President) and multiple super PACs with Future Forward USA being the most prominent. Through the month of June, the Biden/Harris’ official campaign committee had raised about $294 million before Biden decided to leave the race in late July. About 40 percent of the campaign’s money originated from small-dollar donors who contributed less than $200.

On the Republican side, the Trump/Vance primary campaign committee clocked in at $216 million by the end of June—about 25 percent less than the official Biden/Harris campaign. Interestingly, Trump’s early fundraising numbers showed his campaign war chest came overwhelmingly from larger donors (those who contributed more than $200) rather than small, grassroots donors. This pattern is strikingly different than the Trump campaign’s previous fundraising coalitions in 2020 and 2016 when small donors were 49 percent and 65 percent of his individual donations, respectively. The drop-off in small-dollar contributions, at least in relative terms, may signal tepid enthusiasm in Trump’s base during the early months of the campaign. Whether Trump’s first debate performance, the assassination attempt on July 13, 2024, or Biden’s exit spurred excitement amongst his supporters will be revealed in the next round of presidential fundraising reports.

Expect more from super PACs and hybrid committees as Election Day approaches

Super PACs and hybrid committees also continue to play a significant role in the presidential race—a role that is only likely to increase as the general election nears. Again, super PACs are technically independent of and spend money to influence elections uncoordinated with candidate campaigns. The primary Democratic presidential super PAC, Future Forward USA, has raised about $134 million to support the candidacy of Harris/Walz compared to $201 million for Trump’s main super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc. Although the Harris/Walz campaign is ahead of Trump in the funds their primary campaign committees can access, the Trump/Vance campaign network may be better positioned to finance advertisements attacking the Democratic ticket.

As the summer draws to a close, presidential campaigning—by both the candidates’ official committees and their network of allies—will continue to ramp up. The primary campaign committees of Trump and Harris will undoubtedly unleash new advertisements that emphasize the many virtues and accomplishments of the candidates. Importantly, much of the spending in the final days leading up to the election will be done by super PACs and hybrid committees, underlining the significance of viewing the presidential election as the world’s most expensive team sport.

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