Vice President Kamala Harris’s top campaign fund-raisers are being treated to four days of glitz and glam during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago — hotel packages at the Ritz-Carlton and the Four Seasons, an on-field visit to Wrigley Field and, for the really big kahunas, maybe even private face time with the presidential nominee herself.
But unlike at other recent Democratic conventions, the public won’t know who those top fund-raisers are.
About a month before voting begins in some states, 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. 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.
The disclosure of bundlers is not required by law. The modern bundling era began in 2000, when President George W. Bush professionalized the world of campaign fund-raising with a program that was heavy on nicknames, calling some big-money chasers Rangers and others Pioneers. Democratic presidential nominees have disclosed their bundlers in some fashion in every cycle since then. Republican nominees did so in 2004 and 2008; Mitt Romney, a private-equity executive sensitive to concerns he was too close to the rich, did not in 2012. Former President Donald J. Trump did not disclose his bundlers during his 2016 and 2020 campaigns and has not done so this year.
The Harris campaign has so far not disclosed the names of its bundlers, nor did President Biden’s campaign before he dropped out of the race. Asked this week if the Harris campaign planned to disclose its bundlers, a campaign spokesman declined to comment. Trump campaign spokesmen did not respond to requests for comment on whether they planned any disclosure.
The campaigns could disclose their bundlers in the final weeks of the campaign. But advocates for greater transparency in government already see a worrisome trend that is breaking precedent.
“It would be a sad day for America if the level of transparency about who is raising big money for presidential campaigns continues to fall,” said Michael Beckel, the research director for Issue One, a nonprofit group that seeks to reduce the role of money in politics. “This is a transparency practice that is a guardrail for good government, and to see both sides eroding that guardrail is concerning.”
The campaigns certainly know their bundlers and their pecking order. The top members of the Harris Victory Fund this week had rooms at the Ritz-Carlton, while lower-level fund-raisers were placed at the Four Seasons. Campaigns meticulously track how much individual fund-raisers raise, and the top bundlers, members of the campaign’s national finance committee, are a constituency to be catered to, especially during the convention.
Bundling is an art form. It requires a certain amount of audacity, calling associates and wielding fund-raising invitations so the ultrarich can be persuaded to give big money, as much as the Democrats’ so-called “super max” check of $929,600.
Bundling is also a type of contact sport, with wealthy people aggressively positioning themselves against their peers. People who raise the most are awarded with perks — V.I.P. convention packages, invitations to briefings with the candidate and campaign staff and, if their candidate wins, even ambassadorships to choice locales.
All of that chumminess has upset the progressive flank of the Democratic Party. During the 2020 primary, almost all major Democratic presidential contenders sought to disclose their givers as part of an attempt to appeal to voters who were concerned about the effect of money in politics. Ms. Harris disclosed her national finance committee when she ran for the Democratic nomination in 2019, sharing the names of the 100 or so people who raised more than $25,000.
Mr. Biden followed suit once during the primary in December 2019 and then, under pressure, he shared his general-election bundlers on the final weekend of the 2020 presidential campaign, after 90 million people had already voted. Even then, Mr. Biden upset some transparency advocates by disclosing only one level of fund-raisers: the 800 people who raised more than $100,000, with no gradations. The Biden campaign certainly knew gradations mattered: People who raised over $2.5 million for his 2020 bid were sent gold buttons, for instance. Some bigger fund-raisers wished the Biden campaign publicly gave them their due.
Sometimes, presidential campaigns share such information to their bundlers in real time. Gov. Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign, for instance, offered a leaderboard that revealed who had raised how much. But the Harris campaign shares with bundlers only if a fellow bundler that they recruited has raised their first $250,000. The Trump campaign has at times maintained dashboards that gave bundlers some idea how much other people in their region or nationally have raised, but it has been inconsistent.
Ms. Harris’s finance operation this time around is overseen by Jeffrey Katzenberg, a national co-chair of the presidential campaign, and Rufus Gifford, the campaign’s finance chair. Mr. Trump’s bundling operation has been helmed by Duke Buchan, the former U.S. ambassador to Spain and finance chair of the Republican National Committee, and Meredith O’Rourke, his top fund-raising official.
The only bundlers whom the campaigns are required to disclose to the Federal Election Commission are those who are federally registered lobbyists or affiliated political-action committees. But that does not yield much transparency. The Trump and Harris campaigns have disclosed only one bundler each: a Republican lobbyist, Jeff Miller, who has raised $84,000 for Mr. Trump; and the JStreetPAC, which raised $83,000 for the Biden and Harris campaigns.
But campaigns have gone beyond that out of a sense that it was the right thing to do — and also a chance to flex.
“We were very clear that we were going to do this from Day 1 — with everybody,” said Jack Oliver, who set up the Bush fund-raising program in 2000 and 2004. Mr. Oliver said it wasn’t controversial. “Do what you’re going to do — and let the sunshine in,” he said.
This year, the Trump team set up a six-tier bundling operation around the time that Mr. Trump secured the Republican nomination, called Trump 47. The top-level donors commit to raise (or donate partially) $2.5 million and join the Trump Victory Trust; big bundlers to the campaign have included Howard Lutnick, a close friend who is now a co-chair of the Trump transition committee; Woody Johnson, the New York Jets owner who served as the national finance chair of Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign; and Kimberly Guilfoyle, the fiancée of Donald J. Trump Jr. who oversaw the bundling operation in 2020.
Democratic presidential candidates have tended to begin disclosing their bundlers in the year before the election, even in situations similar to 2024 when there was not a competitive primary: John Kerry, the Democratic nominee in 2004, released his first list of fund-raisers in October 2003 and did so regularly during the campaign. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton shared names in the spring of 2007 and regularly updated their list of bundlers during their 2008 presidential primary battle. In his unopposed run for re-election, Mr. Obama began to release the names of his bundlers in July 2011. In her 2016 campaign, Mrs. Clinton began disclosing bundlers in July 2015.
But Mr. Biden did not disclose his list throughout 2023. Ms. Harris became the nominee only recently, of course, but his aides — who are now, by and large, Ms. Harris’s aides — received two requests from public-interest groups to do so: In October 2023, before the third-quarter fund-raising report, 14 groups wrote to Mr. Biden’s campaign asking him to release his fund-raisers. They reiterated the request before the January 2024 campaign fund-raising reporting deadline, and the consortium said it planned to press its case again in September.
“Bundlers frequently raise vast sums of money for candidates, often hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars, which may help them ingratiate themselves — and curry favor — with those candidates,” the groups, which included IssueOne and Public Citizen, wrote to the Biden and Trump campaigns.
Some of Ms. Harris’s bundlers privately argue that there is a competitive disadvantage to disclosing their names when Mr. Trump has not opened his books. Also, she has been busy since securing the Democratic nomination a month ago — and releasing a list of bundlers would most likely require their sign-off, a delicate bit of choreography in a world full of egos.
It’s an argument that frustrates those pushing for disclosure who argue that August is already too late.
“We really do want to know who’s trying to influence presidential candidates — now,” said Craig Holman of Public Citizen. He acknowledged that he was holding Ms. Harris to a higher standard. “Any candidate who wants to be fair and honest ought to be disclosing this. I would not expect Trump to do that. I would expect Kamala Harris to do so.”
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