New York State’s Public Campaign Financing Program Empowers Constituent Small Donors

The 2024 election cycle saw nationwide spending by the biggest donors climb ever higher, as it has since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010. Super PACs funded by a few megadonors played a larger role in the presidential race than before, and even took on traditional campaign functions. But the story was different in New York, which debuted the country’s first statewide public campaign financing program since Citizens United. The system puts ordinary constituents who make small donations at the center of campaign fundraising, decreasing candidates’ reliance on large donations from outside their districts. Public financing as enacted in New York is the strongest legislative response yet to Citizens United and subsequent misguided decisions. 

In a well-functioning representative democracy, elected officials work for and are responsive to their constituents — the people who can vote them in or out. The need to raise large sums of money to support political campaigns can challenge this straightforward principle. When officeholders and candidates spend untold hours raising campaign cash from big donors and special interests, who often come from outside their district or state, they spend less time on their constituents’ concerns. 

The increasing role of large donations in the political process has, for good reason, left much of the public skeptical that their elected leaders are actually working for them. Polling consistently shows that voters across the political spectrum are frustrated with the role that wealth plays in American politics. And many elected officials themselves have expressed profound dissatisfaction with a system that requires them to spend so much time raising money from big donors instead of working for those who elected them.

New York’s new program changes some of the most significant incentives for candidates as they seek to fund their campaigns, multiplying small donations from people who live in the districts they seek to represent. After just one cycle, the transformation in candidates’ fundraising shows that the program is working as intended:

• Candidates relied much more on small donations from constituents. The program has made in-district contributions of $250 or less a central component of fundraising. These donations leaped from less than 5 percent of overall funding in recent cycles to 45 percent in the last cycle when factoring in matching funds. Large donations of $1,000 or more and money from entities such as PACs and corporations (which often come from outside candidates’ districts) decreased from 70 and 72 percent of candidates’ funding in 2020 and 2022, respectively, to 38 percent in 2024. 
• Small donors’ participation boomed. An estimated 50,800 New Yorkers made small-dollar in-district donations — about twice as many as in 2020 or 2022. 
• Independent expenditures did not negate the program’s benefits. Spending by super PACs and similar entities, which was concentrated in just 10 percent of legislative districts, did not impede publicly financed candidates from running viable campaigns. 
• Candidates embraced the program. A total of 328 candidates from across the state and from both parties signed up for the program, representing the vast majority of legislative candidates, and 192 qualified for public funds. Candidates in lower-income districts benefited from the program at rates similar to those in wealthier ones.

These findings show that New York’s program is a wise investment in strengthening representation and civic participation and a model for other jurisdictions looking to address big money’s corrosive impact on democracy.

Money from the biggest donors had long eclipsed donations from everyday New Yorkers in state elections. New York’s campaign contribution limits were some of the nation’s highest before the public financing law lowered the limits. Together with other lax rules, the ability to donate exorbitant sums fostered an environment in which a tiny number of ultrawealthy donors wielded immense power in Albany, while small donors had virtually no say.

In the 2022 elections, the last before public financing was implemented, the top 200 donors gave almost $16 million to candidates and millions more to super PACs. This group outspent all 206,000 small donors, who together gave $13.5 million to statewide and legislative candidates.

Big donors do not reflect New York’s geographic, socioeconomic, and racial diversity. A Brennan Center analysis, for example, found that two-thirds of donors who gave $10,000 or more in the 2018 state elections came from just three affluent counties: New York (Manhattan), Nassau, and Westchester. They typically hailed from neighborhoods that were whiter and wealthier and had more college-educated and employed people than neighborhoods where small donors lived. Out-of-state donors gave nearly three times more than all in-state small donors combined. 

This imbalance skewed policymaking on issues such as taxes and real estate regulation and served as a breeding ground for corruption. In 2013, New York’s Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption found that “access to elected officials comes at a price, and that the fight over legislation is often between entities with vast financial resources at their disposal.” The commission ultimately recommended a statewide public financing program to “help reduce the impact of massive donations from wealthy and powerful interests.” 

These trends were hardly unique to New York. Megadonors have increasingly dominated federal and state elections since Citizens United. In 2024, donors giving at least $5 million each to support presidential candidates spent more than twice as much as they did in 2020. Many of those donors also spent heavily on congressional races, overwhelmingly in states to which they had no ties. Wealthy, out-of-state donors also targeted 2024 gubernatorial races, including in Delaware, Indiana, and North Carolina, as well as many ballot measure campaigns. 

These spending patterns have not escaped the public’s notice. Americans believe that big donors and special interests have too much influence over elected officials and constituents too little. A 2023 poll of New Yorkers showed that more than 9 in 10 think that wealthy donors have more influence on politicians than the average voter. The difference is that New York, unlike the federal government, has taken steps to fix this imbalance.

New York State’s Public Campaign Finance Program, launched in November 2022, is the most significant legislative achievement in decades to counter the outsize influence of private wealth in American elections. The program combines time-tested aspects of long-standing public financing programs with updated elements to better respond to the realities of post–Citizens United spending. Its features include the following:

• Matching funds for small donations from constituents. By matching contributions only from district residents for legislative candidates and only from state residents for statewide races, the program boosts the voices of locals.
• Progressively tiered matches for legislative campaign contributions. Only donors giving $250 or less to a given candidate in an election cycle can have their money matched. In senate and assembly elections, the smallest donations receive the highest matching rate. The system matches contributions of $50 or less at a rate of $12-to-$1, and at slightly lower ratios as contributions grow to $250. For statewide races, small donations are matched $6-to-$1. 
• A cap on public funds but not on total fundraising or spending. To ensure the program’s fiscal viability, the law limits the amount of public funds that each candidate can earn in an election. But candidates can continue to raise and spend private funds, subject to individual contribution limits.
• Qualifying thresholds that account for regional socioeconomic diversity. Before they can receive public funds, candidates who opt in must show that they have real community support by raising a baseline dollar amount and a certain number of small donations from constituents. The program accounts for the challenge of fundraising in lower-income districts by lowering the threshold for districts whose median income is lower than the statewide median. 
• Transparency and oversight. Candidates must publicly report their fundraising and spending, including small amounts that traditionally did not require itemization. The program also features a strong compliance and enforcement regime.

Together, these elements incentivize candidates to engage more with and strengthen their ties to their constituents. Candidates, in turn, can rely on their communities to run competitive campaigns in the face of big spending by opponents and outside groups.

Public financing transformed how candidates for the state senate and assembly raised money in 2024. It decisively shifted many candidates’ focus from big, out-of-district donors to constituents making modest donations. Participation by candidates and small donors alike showed clear enthusiasm for this reform.

Candidates Relied on Small Donations from Their Districts

Public financing made small-donor, constituent-focused fundraising a winning option for candidates. With the program, small donations made up a much larger share of total fundraising, and in-district donors played a far more important role than in past cycles.

Candidates relied more on small donors and less on big donors and special interests. Before public financing, small donors giving $250 or less to a candidate accounted for only a sliver of candidates’ fundraising — 12 percent in the 2020 and 2022 legislative elections. Most funding instead came from large donors giving $1,000 or more and entities such as PACs, corporations, and LLCs. Large individual donors accounted for 24 percent of candidate funding in 2020 and 29 percent in 2022, while funding from entities amounted to 46 and 42 percent, respectively. 

But with public financing available in the 2024 elections, small donors grew dramatically in importance. Campaigns took in 49 percent of their funding from donors giving $250 or less and matching funds. Large individual contributions decreased to just 14 percent, and contributions from entities decreased to 24 percent.

Candidates sought support from their constituents. The increase in small donations was driven by the people whom candidates were running to represent. Thanks to public financing, 45 percent of candidate funding in the 2024 elections was attributable to in-district small donors, up from just 5 percent or less in prior cycles. These constituents became a bigger source of funds than either large individual donors or entities.

Publicly financed candidates embraced this shift. In Syracuse, Senator Rachel May highlighted the program’s benefits after winning reelection: 

It has meant a real change in the way I have run the election. But also the idea is people can run who aren’t famous, who aren’t rich, who don’t have rich friends, but they have good ideas. And the whole point of our democracy is for voters to have choices on the ballot. And our public financing system is making that happen.

In a tight primary race for an open assembly seat in Albany County, newcomer Owusu Anane said that the program gave him the opportunity to “talk to the voters, rather than focusing on raising money.” He shared: 

I don’t come from a big name; I don’t come from a wealthy family. Somebody like me shouldn’t even consider running for office, but I think with the public financing, it gives real people an opportunity to have a seat at the table.

Candidates no longer had to choose between competitive fundraising and relying on constituents for support. The program has allowed candidates to fundraise aggressively while relying largely on their constituents, which was previously impossible in most cases.

In 2020, none of the legislative candidates who had $200,000 or more in funding received more than 20 percent of their funding from small donors in their districts. Candidates who relied largely on in-district small donors tended to raise low amounts overall: No candidate who raised more than 50 percent of their funds from constituent small donors raised more than $10,000.

Similarly, in 2022, no well-funded candidates had a high proportion of in-district small donors. The best-funded candidates tended to raise even less from constituent small donors.

In 2024, candidates who did not participate in the program continued to receive only a small portion of their funds from small donors in their districts. But publicly funded candidates broke this pattern. Many raised substantial amounts from in-district small donors and matching funds. Some of the best-funded candidates — newcomers and incumbents alike — relied on constituent small donors and matches for more than half of their funding.

In-District Small Donor Participation More than Doubled

Under the program, small donors stepped up their participation, as is evident both from the number of small donors who gave to candidates in their districts and from the amount that they provided.

The number of small donors participating more than doubled. Across all legislative campaigns in 2024, an estimated 50,800 New Yorkers made small-dollar in-district donations, compared with estimates of 26,014 and 19,829 in 2020 and 2022, respectively. These totals comprise each candidate’s number of distinct donors — that is, they count unique donor-candidate pairs. (Because campaigns do not itemize some donations, we cannot identify the districts of a small number of donors.)

In contrast to in-district small donors, the number of all other individual contributors decreased by about a quarter from past years. Altogether, these results indicate that the program motivated more constituents giving modest amounts to participate in the political process.

In-district small donors together gave more than twice as much as in previous cycles. The total amount given by in-district small donors (excluding matching funds) went from $2.3 million in 2020 and $2.1 million in 2022 to $4.7 million in 2024. By comparison, funding from other classes of individual donors stayed the same or decreased. Medium donors of between $250 and $1,000 gave approximately $4 million in 2020, $6 million in 2022, and $4.4 million in 2024. Large donors of $1,000 or more gave approximately $12 million in 2020, $19.6 million in 2022, and $12.5 million in 2024.

Comparing the donations to the 146 candidates we identified who ran in 2022, before public financing, and then participated in the program in 2024 is especially telling. More than twice as many in-district small donors gave to these candidates in 2024 — 13,443 more than in 2022 — and the total amount that they directly provided more than doubled. (Thanks to matching funds, the actual amount of money attributable to small donors in 2024 was many times the amount in 2022.) The number of other donors decreased among this pool of candidates by 11,099, which is mostly accounted for by a decrease in out-of-district donors.

Program participants made the power of small in-district contributions a focal point of their fundraising messaging in 2024. Incumbent Senator Kristen Gonzalez, for instance, solicited contributions from her Queens district on social media early in the cycle while highlighting the small size of the average contribution to her campaign ($33). Incumbent Senator Monica R. Martinez also highlighted on social media how small contributions from her Long Island constituents could be multiplied with public funds. 

Newcomers also centered their campaigns on small donors in their communities. For instance, Capital Region assembly candidate Jeff Madden created a “launch club” at the start of his campaign, asking local donors to contribute $25 and emphasizing that those contributions “can grow up to 12X!” with matching funds. Hudson Valley assembly candidate Paula Kay likewise kicked off her campaign by pointing to the program’s match ratio at a fundraising event.

Publicly Financed Candidates Were Competitive Despite Independent Expenditures

After Citizens United, some skeptics of public financing argued that super PAC spending would dwarf small donations and matching funds, rendering them ineffective. However, the first cycle of New York’s program demonstrated that publicly financed candidates can run competitive campaigns even when contending with independent expenditures opposing them or supporting their rivals. Moreover, candidates who face big money can keep raising and spending private money even after they have hit the public funding cap — affording them an opportunity to stay competitive.

Super PAC spending did not play a major role in most of New York’s 2024 legislative elections: Three-quarters of legislative districts saw zero independent expenditures, and almost 90 percent saw less than $100,000. These patterns of concentration were similar in 2020 and 2022. As is typical in New York and other jurisdictions, outside spenders targeted a handful of races.

In each of the top five legislative districts that super PACs and other outside groups did target, the total amount of public funds that candidates received exceeded total outside spending — not even accounting for the private funds that participating candidates also raised. For example, senate newcomer Siela Bynoe overcame almost $400,000 in outside spending favoring her opponent in the primary to win her suburban Long Island district. Bynoe earned the maximum amount of public funds available and credited the program with enabling her to run a constituent-powered campaign — one with “remarkable support from every corner of my community.” This experience was not unique: Multiple other publicly financed candidates also won their races despite sizable independent expenditures opposing them, reporting that the program allowed them to run competitive campaigns fueled by in-district donors. 

Candidates Embraced the Program

A high rate of candidate participation is crucial to any public financing program’s success. At the same time, to protect public funds from being spent on frivolous campaigns, they should only be issued to competitive candidates with sufficient community support. New York’s program strikes this balance with robust qualification criteria. In 2024, 70.5 percent of candidates signed up for the program, and those who qualified and earned public funds represented a broad array of communities across the state.

The 328 legislative candidates who enrolled represented more than three-quarters of all legislative districts. Large majorities of both Democrats and Republicans, as well as both challengers and incumbents, opted in. Not all these candidates received matching funds, whether because they did not meet eligibility requirements or because they changed their minds about seeking public funds. Ultimately, 192 legislative candidates across the state received matching funds. 

For the assembly, 70 districts out of 150 had at least one candidate qualify for public funds. These races included contested primaries and general elections in Western New York, upstate, the Hudson Valley, and the New York metro area. Newcomer Claire Cousin, who previously had only contemplated a run for assembly in Columbia County, emphasized that her plans to challenge an incumbent in the primary “didn’t seem doable” before matching funds, and that the program is “sending a clear message that folks like myself have a more fair opportunity to run a competitive race.”

For the senate, the 37 districts out of 63 where candidates received matching funds spanned a similar geographic breadth. These races included competitive elections in Long Island, New York City, the Hudson Valley, and upstate. Capital District senate candidate Minita Sanghvi said, “Instead of, you know, running after big donors, and hearing about those issues, I’m hearing from our residents on issues that matter to them. . . . The community is fueling this, this idea of me running for Senate.”

Candidates in lower-income districts — those New York’s public campaign financing statute defines as having an average median income (AMI) lower than that of the state — participated and fundraised at rates that kept pace with those in wealthier districts. The 94 candidates who earned public funds from lower-AMI districts received a total of $16.4 million in matching funds, while the 98 such candidates in higher-AMI districts received a total of $18.7 million. In one lower-AMI senate district in the Central Region, newcomer Michele Frazier praised the program after qualifying to receive matching funds, explaining that “public financing is a game-changer that makes it possible for a working mom like me to run a competitive campaign and spend my time talking to voters about the issues that matter most to them.” In another lower-AMI senate district in western New York, first-time candidate Patrick Chludzinski said that running a successful campaign against a four-term incumbent would have been “impossible” without matching funds.

In the years since Citizens United, ultrawealthy individuals and corporations have come to make up an ever-greater share of political spending in American elections. Their power can seem insurmountable. But in 2024, New York showed that there is an alternative path forward. 

The state’s legislative elections broke a pattern of big donors having a disproportionate influence on its politics. A large majority of candidates opted in to the public financing system. Publicly financed candidates across the state raised competitive amounts while relying largely on small donations from their communities. And even when contests saw large independent expenditures, publicly financed candidates ran competitive campaigns and often won. 

There is every reason to believe that participation in the program will grow as campaigns and donors alike continue to learn about it. Candidates have already started opting in for the 2026 election cycle, including legislative candidates who participated last year and candidates in the first statewide elections since the introduction of public financing. These early registrations demonstrate candidates’ enthusiasm.

State lawmakers and other officials must invest in the program to ensure that it continues to deliver benefits to New Yorkers. They should provide state budget resources, including necessary funding for program administration and matching funds for future election cycles. They should also evaluate the Public Campaign Finance Board’s recent legislative and regulatory recommendations to make sure that the program continues to fulfill “its promise of a government more accountable to all New York voters regardless of wealth or position.” 

The matching system will not cure every ill in Albany. Other vital work remains to improve the public’s faith in government, including promoting transparency and ethics and ensuring that campaign finance rules are properly enforced. But the new program represents a giant leap forward in addressing the state’s notorious and rampant political corruption, as the 2013 Moreland Commission detailed in its findings. 

Even as big money seems like an unstoppable force in American politics, the first run of New York State’s pathbreaking public financing system offers real hope that there is a way to push back and restore confidence in government.