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'Money Primary' Off to an Early Start

Only a few candidates have actually launched their campaigns, but what's known inside the Beltway as "the money primary" is already well underway among the sprawling field of aspirants for the next Democratic presidential nomination.

Plenty of them have created additional fundraising machinery beyond traditional campaign committees, and Politico is out today with an analysis of how seven of the most prominent among them used these political action committees to try to get a little leg up for 2020 – yet another in the almost infinite ways politicians can leverage the loose rules about money in politics for every possible advantage.


Former Vice President Joe Biden raised the most for his PAC but spent most of that money on his own efforts, perhaps a signal that his team was not clear – at least during the midterm election campaign – what their boss's intentions were about making another presidential run. Candidates often spread their so-called leadership PAC money around in a palpable attempt to secure support at the campaign's earlies stages.

The most prominent announced candidate to date, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, transferred more funds than any of the other aspirants from her leadership PAC to other Democrats or state parties, but Biden's PAC spent just a quarter of its fundraising on others. Warren gave away 85 percent of what she raised. She was followed by New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker (70 percent), Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (56 percent), Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (46 percent), California Sen. Kamala Harris (37 percent) and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (36 percent).

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Signs in a walkway, including one that reads "Early Voting Site" with an arrow pointing the way

A sign guides people to an early voting location in Raleigh, N,C., on Oct. 24.

Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images

It’s Vote Early Day!

Bennett is executive director of Vote Early Day, a nonpartisan effort promoting a civic holiday dedicated to empowering Americans to vote early.

It’s Vote Early Day! Today, thousands of nonprofits, businesses, campus groups, election leaders and other voting enthusiasts are hosting celebrations encouraging Americans to vote early in every corner of the country.

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ballot envelope

An Arizona vote-by-mail ballot from the 2020 election

Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

Republicans target fine print of voting by mail in key states

Rosenfeld is the editor and chief correspondent of Voting Booth, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

In the first installment of this two-part series, I focused on the many efforts that failed to roll back the popular vote-by-mail options to pre-pandemic levels and the GOP effort to disqualify more ballots. Today we focus on the states in the crosshairs.

The litigation targeting mailed-out ballots has evolved since the 2020 and 2022 general elections, when Trump-supporting Republicans lost many federal and statewide contests, and their allies took broad swipes at vote-by-mail programs. Take Arizona, for example, whose current mail voting regime has been in place since 1991, and where 80 percent of its statewide electorate cast mail ballots in 2020’s presidential election.

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Avoid the political hobgoblins

Lockard is an Iowa resident who regularly contributes to regional newspapers and periodicals. She is working on the second of a four-book fictional series based on Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice."

“Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” (Emerson)

What exactly is a hobgoblin? In Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” the mischievous sprite Puck, who creates havoc in the forest, is a hobgoblin. Dobby, the interfering house elf in J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series, is also a hobgoblin.

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