Karoline Leavitt can’t seem to shake her old campaign debt.
The White House press secretary’s 2022 congressional campaign still owes creditors more than $326,000, according to its most recent financial report, filed Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission.
Most of that debt — more than $210,000 — is attributable to unpaid refunds to donors who made excessive contributions to Leavitt’s campaign, in violation of federal limits.
Leavitt’s old campaign first disclosed the debt — first reported by NOTUS — in January 2025, more than two years after she lost her congressional race in New Hampshire in November 2022.
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Plenty of political campaigns carry hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in debt for years after the election has ended. While federal law requires the campaigns to stay open and continue to file public reports disclosing the debt, there is often little chance that they actually make their creditors whole.
But the Leavitt campaign debt is different, since a significant portion requires refunds for contributions that exceeded the legal limit by hundreds or thousands of dollars.
When a congressional campaign receives an excessive contribution, the FEC guidelines state “the committee must not spend the funds,” which should be refunded or redistributed.
The Leavitt campaign report says it has no cash on hand, meaning there is no money in the bank to issue refunds. Leavitt could still legally raise money for the purpose of retiring the debts but has made no financial progress toward doing so, her committee’s filing indicates.
The White House did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment from Leavitt.
End Citizens United, a liberal watchdog group, filed a complaint with the FEC in November 2022 alleging Leavitt had accepted and failed to refund the excessive contributions.
An FEC spokesperson previously declined to provide an update on the complaint, which the agency declined to comment on. But the FEC has been unable to take enforcement action of any sort since May 1, 2025, when the campaign finance regulator entered a de facto shutdown after losing the minimum number of commissioners to perform such high level duties.
President Donald Trump nominated two Republican commissioners in February. If confirmed, the addition of the new commissioners would restore a quorum on the commission.
But their Senate confirmation hearings have not yet been announced, and it’s not clear if a quorum will be restored before the 2026 midterm election.
The agency also has a backlog of more than 250 enforcement cases whenever it does reopen, Democratic FEC Chair Shana Broussard wrote on BlueSky last month.
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