Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign raised $540 million in just over a month. Good for her. Now Harris should do the right thing — what previous Democratic nominees have done, and what Harris did during her primary campaign in 2019 — and release the names of her “bundlers.”
By Ruth Marcus
Bundling is a bipartisan sport, and bundlers — fundraisers who deliver fat stacks of campaign checks — are a critical element of any modern presidential campaign. Individuals are limited in the amount they can give directly to federal candidates: $3,300 per election this year.
The beauty of bundlers is that they can tap into their extensive Rolodexes and favor networks to produce totals far exceeding that amount, often competing among themselves to reach specific fundraising targets — $100,000, $250,000 and up.
Way up. NBC News reported last year that the Biden-Harris campaign had set a top tier of “Presidential Partner” for those who raise at least $2.5 million. Puck News reported in January that the Trump campaign had designated those who haul in $1 million or more as “Ultra MAGA.”
You can be sure that campaigns diligently track the performance of their bundlers — and reward them accordingly, with special access and other benefits during the campaign, and the prospect of administration jobs (think plum ambassadorships) if their candidate wins. For their part, bundlers may be motivated by ideology, self-interest or some combination of the two.
The public is entitled to know who these people are so it can judge whom candidates are beholden to and what role campaign cash played in staffing administrations. Why should this indisputably relevant data — information that campaigns already collect — be hidden from public view?
Answer: It shouldn’t. Unfortunately, however, there’s no legal requirement for campaigns to take this step, except when it comes to registered lobbyists. Donald Trump did not disclose his bundlers in 2016 or 2020 and has ignored entreaties to do so in 2024; President Joe Biden did not respond to requests to release a list of his bundlers before withdrawing from the race, although he did so, belatedly and spottily, during the 2020 race.
This dismal performance represents significant backsliding from recent practice — backsliding that Harris, who released the names of those bundling $25,000 and up during her primary campaign in 2019, could reverse. The Harris campaign declined to comment.
The modern era of bundling dates from the 2000 campaign, when George W. Bush made the practice into a competitive enterprise, with donors awarded the status of Rangers (collecting at least $200,000) and Pioneers (bringing in $100,000); Bush also made their names public. In the ensuing cycles, Democratic nominees followed suit; Republicans did so in 2004, when Bush was running for reelection, and in 2008, when campaign finance reform advocate John McCain was on the ticket, but haven’t since.
The consequence is that, with just a month to go before early voting begins, “American voters have less knowledge about the people helping the 2024 presidential candidates raise money than they have had in any election in 20 years,” as the New York Times put it in an excellent report on bundling. “That’s because, for the first time in modern presidential fund-raising, neither the Democratic nor the Republican nominee has disclosed the names of so-called bundlers, the people who amass large financial contributions for presidential campaigns and, in the eyes of transparency advocates, wield significant power in campaigns and presidential administrations.”
That this scandal-in-plain-sight has not received more attention is a reflection of the general ennui with the topic of money in politics. Once, the flood of money into the political system — and what to do about it — was a subject of intense concern, and a sharp dividing line between the two parties, with Democrats generally far more supportive of efforts to reduce the influence of special interest groups and other deep-pocketed donors.
But as the Supreme Court has overturned various campaign finance restrictions as violative of the First Amendment, and as the Federal Election Commission has proved itself ineffective in policing what limits remain, hope springs paltry about the ability to do much in this arena, and the flood has become a gusher. The era of super PACs that can raise unlimited sums on behalf of candidates, and dark-money donations and spending that doesn’t need to be disclosed, has made arguments for fixing the broken system seem hopelessly naive.
Perhaps this column is as well. But Harris could do the right thing: release the names of bundlers, and soon, and with information on different tiers of collection beyond the paltry information Biden provided in 2020, when he waited until the final weekend before the election to list 800 people who raised $100,000 or more.
She should do this even though it isn’t legally required. Even though it might annoy some bundlers. (They were on notice from past practice that their identities might be disclosed.) Even though Trump won’t.
Back when Democrats simultaneously inveighed against unlimited soft-money donations and did their best to scoop up this cash, there was a reasonable argument that they shouldn’t have to unilaterally disarm. But for Harris to disclose her bundlers wouldn’t give much of a strategic advantage to Trump.
It would just underscore her difference from the Republican nominee. It would represent a commitment to transparency. If the vice president is elected, the Presidential Partners who hauled in $2.5 million or more will have gone a long way toward helping that happen. Can Kamala Harris explain why she won’t tell voters who they are?
