Barack Obama · Deep dive

Affiliations

85.4% → 74.4%from individuals

Across his two cycles, while affiliated transfers went 11.2% to 24.6%.

Who is he tied to, upstream and lateral? For a politician the countable answer is where the campaign money came from — the structure of it, not the size. Across his two campaigns the individual share fell 11 points while transfers from affiliated committees more than doubled. Against the opposing campaign in the same year he was the more individual-funded operation both times, and his unitemised share was the one thing that did not move.

Six of six — the base set is complete

Every subject at this tier is asked the same six questions, fixed before the subject is chosen so the set cannot be picked to suit an argument. The others written for this record are Private Money, The Output, Reach, The Legal Record and Standing. With this one the base set is complete, so the overlay dives — the ones specific to what this subject has been — are unblocked. None of them could have been started before now.

Back to the full record.

85.4%

from individuals, 2008

Against 81.9% for the opposing campaign

11.2%

from affiliated transfers, 2008

Rising to 24.6% by 2012

30.1%

unitemised, 2008

A derived figure. 20.7% for the opponent

31.7%

unitemised, 2012

The one share that did not move between his cycles

public-financing figures on this page

The API field reads zero where a grant is known to exist

Structure, not size

Individual share down 11 points; transfers more than doubled

Principal campaign committee, by cycle, with the opposing campaign in the same cycle. A campaign’s funding shape means nothing on its own, so each of his cycles sits beside the opposing principal campaign committee from the same year, operating under the same rules.

Cycle · committee	Receipts	From individuals	Affiliated transfers	Unitemised
2008Obama for AmericaC00431445	$778.6m	85.4%$664.9m	11.2%$87.0m	30.1%$234.7m · derived
2008John McCain 2008C00430470 · same-cycle control	$239.8m	81.9%$196.4m	9.1%$21.8m	20.7%$49.6m
2012Obama for AmericaC00431445	$738.5m	74.4%$549.6m	24.6%$181.7m	31.7%$234.4m
2012Romney for PresidentC00431171 · same-cycle control	$483.5m	62.8%$303.8m	30.3%$146.5m	16.6%$80.0m

Every transfer figure on this page comes from the affiliated-committee transfer line. The FEC API carries more than one transfer field and which is populated depends on the form the committee files: the line used here is populated for presidential (Form 3P) committees, while the "other authorized committee" line is absent for all of them and reads as zero if taken at face value. Any transfer percentage computed from a different line is measuring a different thing and is not comparable to these.

Reading it

Between his own two campaigns the individual share fell 11 points and the transfer share more than doubled. Against the same-cycle control he was the more individual-funded of the two operations both times, by 3.5 points in 2008 and 11.6 in 2012. On transfers the control does not run one way: he took a HIGHER share as transfers than McCain did in 2008, and a lower share than Romney did in 2012. Reporting only the 2012 pair would have made that look like a consistent difference, and it is not one.

Counted as of 2026-08-09. This dive belongs to the record it sits inside. Money in politics as a subject in its own right is owned by Citizens United & the Money.