Carol Roberts from Greendale, Wis., asks:
Mr. Bloomberg has said that if he doesn’t get nominated, he’ll spend $100 million to support whichever Dem. candidate is nominated. How can he do that without exceeding the $2,800 limit?
Thanks, Carol, for an excellent question. At least a few Democratic strategists are eager to learn how, exactly, Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor, plans to shift his organization toward the general election if he fails to capture the nomination.
It’s true that individuals can contribute a maximum of $2,800 to a candidate’s general election campaign. But Mr. Bloomberg will not have to give money to the Democratic nominee’s campaign — he can keep his own campaign going and use it to help the nominee or hurt President Trump.
As long as Mr. Bloomberg has an active campaign, he can give unlimited contributions from his multibillion-dollar fortune to himself, because the Federal Election Commission sets no limits on how much individuals can give to their own campaigns. The only restriction is that the amount of money donated has to be reported — a rule that’s made a whole lot of political types awfully excited to see Mr. Bloomberg’s first campaign finance report, which is due at the end of this week.
Could Mr. Bloomberg choose to not drop out of the race, even if it was clear he was not going to be the nominee? Perhaps.
Another option may be for Mr. Bloomberg to transfer his campaign operation into his existing super PAC, which can raise and spend unlimited sums of money.
In 2018, Mr. Bloomberg and his organizations spent more than $112 million, an amount that also includes donations to help Senate candidates and progressive organizations.
His spending this cycle is likely to be many multiples of that amount: Already, he’s spent hundreds of millions of dollars on just advertising. And when I spoke to him this month, he would not rule out dropping $1 billion to defeat Mr. Trump.