Candidate Funding Quotes

The reason that minorities and women don't have a better shot at getting elected to the Senate or to statewide office is because the campaign finance rules are so skewed as to make it very difficult for non-traditional candidates to raise the money necessary to get elected.

[Tom] Steyer is specifically spending money on candidates who will take action against climate change.

If the friends of the candidate choose to go to expense for committees and canvassing [campaigning] there are no means of preventing them; but such expenses out of the candidate’s own pocket, or any expenses whatever beyond the deposit of £50 (or £100), should be illegal and punishable.

It is now clear that giving to a candidate’s PAC is equivalent to giving to his campaign; the leaders of the PAC are, for all practical purposes, are the campaign’s bag men.

When a hedge-fund guy gets lucky because the market goes up, and he is going to make $200m, and you know $200 million, and he is going to pay almost no tax. I don't think that is a good thing for the country, and they are all supporting Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton, all the hedge-fund guys. I don't want their support, because I'm totally self-funding my campaign.

Trump can spend virtually an unlimited amount of his own money on this election, which makes him unlike any of the other candidates in the race. So those who oppose him will have to work very hard to make sure he doesn't win.

If the United States really wanted to increase political diversity, it would provide the option for candidates to run with public funds.

There is something democratic about grass-roots, widespread money support. There is something anti-democratic about one person propping up a candidate who can't make it.

The Court made an exception, however, in the case of candidates contributing to their own campaigns because of the rather reasonable presumption that a candidate is incapable of corrupting himself.

When one donor can account for more than 70 percent of a candidate's money, there's obviously something wrong with the system.

In order to be a top-tier candidate, I need 7.5 million dollars, and I currently have 0.0 million dollars.

The goal of limiting campaign contributions is to find that line between contributions that are so high that a candidate feels beholden to a donor and contribution levels that are so low that a non-incumbent candidate has little chance of making an effective race.

From 1976, Judy to 1996, we had six presidential elections. And it was run under the Campaign Finance Reform Act of 1974. In all six of them, every candidate agreed to limits of what he could collect in contributions and what he could spend in seeking a nomination. And they all abided by it.

Super PACs and a corrupt campaign finance system are destroying American democracy. We're proud that we have received four million individual contributions, more than any candidate in American history at this point.