A SUCCESS FOR DEMOCRACY: PUBLIC CAMPAIGN FINANCING

The campaign finance system in the U.S. is corrupt. It allows wealthy individuals and corporations to effectively buy and bribe candidates. One of the signs of resurgent democracy is the passing of campaign finance reforms in many states and municipalities. One very effective way to democratize campaign financing is a public matching funds system that amplifies the campaign contributions, and therefore the voices and power, of everyday Americans. New York City’s public financing system is credited with allowing Zohran Mamdani to run a competitive race for Mayor.

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The campaign finance system in the U.S. is corrupt. It allows wealthy individuals and corporations to effectively buy and bribe candidates. This fosters oligarchy. However, as noted in this previous post, one sign of resurgent democracy is the passing of campaign finance reforms in many states and municipalities.

Making campaign financing more democratic is quite difficult, given that the Supreme Court has equated political spending with speech, including for corporations, and ruled that free speech rights, therefore, allow unlimited campaign spending by wealthy individuals and corporations.

However, there is one very effective way to democratize campaign financing and level the playing field between candidates with access to big sums of money and everyday people running for elected office: a public financing system. More than 14 states and 25 municipalities have enacted campaign finance reforms with some form of public financial support. The most effective of these systems gives a candidate the option of participating in a public matching funds system. If they do, it requires them to agree to restrictions on the size of donations and the use of their own funds. Without voluntary opting in, these restrictions would be prohibited by the Supreme Court’s rulings. [1] Public matching funds amplify the small campaign contributions, and therefore the voices and power, of everyday Americans. [2]

New York City’s public financing system, which has been in place since 1988, is credited with allowing Zohran Mamdani to run a competitive race for Mayor. He won the Democratic primary and is favored to win Tuesday’s final election. (He’s facing disgraced former New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo, whom he beat in the primary. Cuomo, a lifelong Democratic, is running in the final election as an independent with backing from the oligarchy, including President Trump.)

Whether Mamdani wins the final election or not, this is a huge win for democracy. (See this previous post for more detail on public financing systems and their benefits for democracy.) It shows that a public financing system like New York City’s allows a serious candidate, but one who lacks access to big money, to run a competitive campaign against candidates with the backing of the big money oligarchs. It allows candidates to run and win without big money from private donors who want policy favors.

In New York City’s public financing system, small donations of up to $250 from constituents (i.e., residents of the City) are matched by public funds 8 to 1. Therefore, a $50 contribution is worth $450 to the candidate and a $250 contribution is worth $2,250. Mamdani raised over $4 million from over 40,000 contributors, making his average contribution amount under $100. He received over $13 million in public matching funds for his qualifying, private contributions.

Without these public matching funds, Mamdani probably would not have had the resources necessary to effectively reach out to enough New Yorkers to be competitive against the oligarch-funded Cuomo. As Mamdani said, “it allows … the amplification of the voice of ordinary New Yorkers, as opposed to the billionaires who have grown used to buying our elections.” [3]

The public financing of campaigns is not a new idea. It was first proposed by Teddy Roosevelt in 1907 as part of his effort to rein in the Robber Barons and their monopolistic trusts of the Gilded Age, as well as to rein in the political corruption they fostered. In 1974, after the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Nixon, a public financing system was created for presidential campaigns. The Senate passed legislation creating a public financing system for congressional elections, but it was not passed by the Democratic-controlled House. In the 1990s, after the savings and loan crisis and scandals, Congress passed public financing for congressional elections, but Republican President George H. W. Bush vetoed it. Democratic President Clinton promoted public financing legislation, but Republicans blocked it with a filibuster. Some presidential candidates opted out of the presidential public financing system because they found its spending limits constraining and too low. As the cost and spending of presidential campaigns escalated, the public financing system failed to keep up. In 2008, candidate Barack Obama opted out of the system, which was essentially its death knell.

Public campaign financing systems at the state and local levels will hopefully gain enough support so that eventually such a system will again be proposed for our national elections. Without public financing, many candidates face a wrenching choice: run a race standing up for everyday people and challenging the oligarchs but that fails to be competitive due to a lack of resources, or sell out to the big donors who are looking for policies to be shaped to their benefit. In the current big donor dominated campaign finance system, multiple studies and many, many anecdotes show that broadly popular policies don’t get enacted because policies are consistently formulated to benefit the wealthy and their companies.

[1]      Brennan Center for Justice, retrieved from the Internet on 10/17/25, “Reform money in politics,” (https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/reform-money-politics)

[2]      Sirota, D., 10/22/25, “The real lesson from Zohran Mamdani’s ascent,” The Nation (https://thenationmagazine.substack.com/p/the-real-lesson-from-zohran-mamdanis)

[3]      Sirota, D., 10/22/25, see above