Inflation leads to higher campaign donation limits

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) on Thursday raised political donation limits to account for historic inflation, boosting the potential influence of wealthy donors in the 2024 election cycle. 

A single donor can now give $6,600 to each federal candidate — $3,300 per election, including the primary and general election contests — up from $5,800 in the 2022 cycle. 

Donation limits to party committees such as the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee also rose. A single donor can now give nearly $2 million to their preferred party committees per election cycle, an increase of around $230,000 from last year’s midterms. 

Wealthy donors regularly make maximum donations to political candidates and party committees to gain influence with lawmakers. 

Just 10 individuals donated a combined $540 million to federal candidates in the midterm elections. Most of that money went to super PACs that can raise and spend unlimited sums of money but are not supposed to coordinate with candidates.

Federal candidates and political committees spent an estimated $8.9 billion in the 2022 election cycle, according to nonpartisan research group OpenSecrets, an all-time midterm record. 

Federal law requires the FEC to raise contribution limits every other year in accordance with inflation, which peaked in June at 9.1 percent, the highest annual rate in four decades.

The contribution limit for PACs has remained at $5,000 for decades and is not indexed for inflation, lessening the influence of corporate PACs as individual limits rise.