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I'm just wondering what happened with hundreds of millions Bernie Sanders raised in 2016. Did he give to the DNC?

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    Any reason you're commenting on that primary candidate in particular? Feb 20, 2019 at 1:51
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    Because I want to know about that candidate in particular? Feb 20, 2019 at 2:18
  • The existing (and appreciated) answer shows that this question makes sense since: it provides both raised and spent amounts and partially answers by explaining what happened to the vast majority of the money. Thus, I think this question is on-topic.
    – Alexei
    Feb 21, 2019 at 7:56
  • @AndrewGrimm Can't speak for asker, but during the DNC primaries before the. 2016 election, there was a great deal of people mentioning donating to his campaign, and others "matching donations". Regardless of how much of that was real, it was a massive meme at the time.
    – bobsburner
    Sep 17, 2019 at 13:08

1 Answer 1

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According to the FEC the Sander 2016 campaign raised 237.7 million and disbursed 233.0 million, leaving 4.7 million cash on hand as of Dec 2018.

I can't imagine that he gave it to the DNC, as Sanders is not a Democrat.

According to Investopedia funds remaining at the conclusion of a campaign are:

Permissible Uses

The contributions can be used in the following ways:

  • Donations to charities, as long as the candidate doesn’t receive compensation from the organizations and the donation is not used by the charity to benefit the candidate.
  • A donation of a maximum of $2000 to another presidential candidate.
  • Unlimited transfers to a local, state or national political party committee.
  • Donations to state and local candidates or transfer to a future election campaign committee of the same candidate (Bernie Sanders transferred $1.5 million collected from his Senate campaign committee to his presidential committee).

So presumably whatever funds remained are likely to be transferred to his 2020 campaign.

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    I'm not sure "I can't imagine that he gave it to the DNC, as Sanders is not a Democrat." answer the question about what he did with the money. Feb 20, 2019 at 18:57
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    Two questions were asked, 1) What was done with the remains?, 2) Did he give it to DNC?. As of Dec 2018, there was approx 5 million that had not been distributed, had he given it to the DNC prior to Dec 2018, the funds would not have considered undistributed. The FEC report for the past two months is not available, so we are left to speculate. My speculation is that Sanders has transferred it to his 2020 campaign.
    – BobE
    Feb 20, 2019 at 22:35

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