Vance’s PAC runs on Trump’s fundraising: more than 99% of its money came from the president’s joint committee

By Staff Reporter

WASHINGTON — Vice President JD Vance said this week that if he runs for president in 2028, “I think I would get his endorsement,” meaning President Donald Trump’s, The Hill reported. Federal campaign records show that Vance’s own political committee already depends on Trump. Nearly every dollar it has raised since he became vice president came from Trump’s fundraising operation.

Vance’s leadership PAC, Working for Ohio, reported $1.42 million in receipts for the 2025-26 election cycle through Sept. 30. Of that, $1,405,446, more than 99 percent, arrived as three transfers from Trump National Committee JFC, Inc., a joint fundraising committee that also raises money for the Republican National Committee and for Trump’s own leadership PAC, Never Surrender. The transfers stopped in February. In the six months from April through September, Working for Ohio reported $3.25 in new money.

An Inquisitor review of the PAC’s five reports this cycle, the joint committee’s registration and its transfer records finds that Vance does not have an independent fundraising base of his own as he heads into a possible 2028 campaign. He has a small share of Trump’s.

How the money moves

A joint fundraising committee lets several committees raise money together and then split the proceeds under a formula they agree on. The Trump National Committee JFC’s original Form 1, filed Jan. 31, 2025, listed two participants: the RNC and Never Surrender, Inc. An amended statement filed May 8, 2025 added a third, Working for Ohio. The filings do not disclose the allocation formula.

The joint committee has paid out about $68 million to its three participants this cycle, according to FEC disbursement data. Working for Ohio’s share was about 2 percent.

The three transfers to Vance’s PAC came on June 25, 2025 ($245,020), Sept. 26, 2025 ($475,556) and Feb. 27, 2026 ($684,870). The FEC’s records show the joint committee made no transfers to any participant after May 14 and reported about $22.4 million in cash on Sept. 30. On paper, it could resume payments before the election.

Pennies at a time

The joint committee’s money comes overwhelmingly from small, repeat donors, and Working for Ohio’s reports show what that looks like when it is split three ways. Its mid-year 2025, year-end 2025 and April 2026 reports itemize the donors whose share of the transfers to Vance’s PAC exceeded $200 for the cycle. The Inquisitor counted 218,712 itemized attributions, many of them a few cents or a dollar, which together add up to about $180,443. They trace to roughly 550 people, matched by name and ZIP code.

That means about 87 percent of the money Vance’s PAC received from the joint committee came from donors who were not itemized because their share stayed under $200, and whose identities therefore do not appear on its reports. Of the itemized money, the largest amounts came from donors in Texas, Florida and California. Ohio, the state Vance represented in the Senate and the one in the PAC’s name, accounted for about 2.4 percent.

The Inquisitor is not naming individual donors. Most are listed as retired, and the amounts attributed to any one of them are small.

Two other entries complete the receipts: $5,000 each from True North PAC and Fund for America’s Future. The True North money was refunded in December 2025.

Where the money went

Working for Ohio spent $790,413 this cycle, according to its Oct. 15 report and FEC disbursement data. Of that, $290,000 went to Republican candidates in $5,000 checks, and $495,413 went to operating costs. It ended September with $641,055 in the bank.

The contributions came in two bursts. In late December 2025, the PAC gave $5,000 each to 12 Republican senators or Senate candidates, among them Sens. Katie Britt, Dan Sullivan, James Lankford, Chuck Grassley, John Kennedy, Dave McCormick, Mike Rounds and Tim Scott, Rep. Ashley Hinson’s Iowa Senate campaign and former Rep. Mike Rogers in Michigan.

In March 2026, a month after the last transfer, it sent $220,000. House candidates got 27 checks on March 18 and March 24. They included six Texas House candidates and swing-district incumbents such as Reps. Mike Lawler, Tom Kean Jr., Jen Kiggans, Juan Ciscomani, Zach Nunn, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Rob Bresnahan, Tom Barrett, Gabe Evans and Derrick Van Orden. On March 31 it gave to a second group of Senate candidates, including Ohio’s Bernie Moreno and Jon Husted ($10,000 each across two checks), Michael Whatley in North Carolina, John E. Sununu in New Hampshire, Sen. Ashley Moody in Florida, Julia Letlow in Louisiana and Kevin Hern in Oklahoma.

After March the giving slowed to a trickle: $5,000 to Rep. Ronny Jackson in May and $5,000 to Barry Moore’s Alabama Senate campaign in May. The PAC reported no contributions to candidates from June through September, the stretch when campaigns were building toward the general election, and no independent expenditures.

The rest of the Vance money map

Vance’s other federal committees are small. JD Vance for Senate Inc., his old Senate campaign committee, raised $230,985 in 2025-26: $115,419 from individuals, $80,000 from other political committees and $35,566 in other receipts. It spent $210,110 and had $156,507 on hand at the end of September. Vance Victory, a joint fundraising committee from his Senate years, has raised $6,875 this cycle and had $3,599 left. FEC records show no presidential committee registered for him.

Vance’s fundraising role this cycle has been for the party. The RNC named him finance chairman in March 2025, the first sitting vice president to hold the post, the AP reported. That puts him at the center of the operation that funds his own PAC.

Why it matters for 2028

Several Democrats who are weighing 2028 have spent the midterm cycle building their own donor lists. Pete Buttigieg’s Win the Era PAC has raised $14.6 million this cycle, and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s federal PAC ended September with $7 million in cash, the Inquisitor reported Tuesday. Vance’s money has come through Trump’s committee instead. That is consistent with how he has described the race: it will turn largely on the president’s blessing, which he called “so dispositive” in the interview The Hill reported.

Nothing in the records suggests the arrangement is improper. Joint fundraising committees are legal and common, and leadership PACs routinely join them. The records do show its limits. Vance’s PAC has no large donor base of its own on file, its money arrived on the joint committee’s schedule, and when the transfers stopped, so did its fundraising.

Vance remains the early front-runner for the Republican nomination in most surveys, as the Inquisitor has reported. The Hill, citing unnamed sources, reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has told donors he will not run against him.

Methodology: The Inquisitor downloaded the electronic filings for Working for Ohio (C00783167) covering Jan. 1, 2025, to Sept. 30, 2026, parsed every Schedule A and B line, and matched them to the FEC’s processed totals. Donor counts are approximate because the same person can appear under slightly different names or addresses. Transfer data for the joint committee comes from the FEC’s processed Schedule B records, which may lag the most recent filings.

Photo: Vice President JD Vance’s official portrait, March 2026. The White House / Emily J. Higgins, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.