Vice President Harris likely has a strong claim to the funds, but not all legal experts agree. Moreover, the Federal Election Commission works too slowly to make much of an impact on the race.
The Biden campaign said it had $240 million cash on hand at the beginning of July. It likely burned through a good deal of that on ads, staffing and the like since then, but now that President Biden is out, there’s a question of whether any other candidate would or should have access to that money.
The short answer seems to be that Vice President Harris — who is already poised to be the new Democratic nominee — has a strong claim to the funds, because she was and is on the filing statements as a candidate with Biden. Other potential replacements would not, according to many campaign finance experts.
Those candidates would have to rely on Biden donating the money to an outside group or super PAC or he would have to stand one up on his own to support the potential Democratic nominee. But the candidate would not have control over that money or how it’s used.
Some right-leaning campaign finance lawyers think it’s more complicated and don’t think it’s a slam dunk that Harris has access — despite the Biden campaign already changing its name to the Harris campaign.
Regardless, practically speaking, the question may be moot in the short term because of how long the Federal Election Commission takes to adjudicate complaints. Harris would almost certainly have access to the funds through the compressed campaign, and there’s little to nothing the FEC can do about it because of the timeline.
