Cite as: 609 U. S. ____ (2026) 9 KAGAN, J., dissenting day.3 See §30116(a)(4) (authorizing unlimited transfers between state and national committees of a political party). The upshot is that most of a big donor’s $550,000 check to the John Smith Victory Fund soon ends up in the national party committee’s hands. Then the key question becomes: What can the party do with that money? Before today, the answer was: Many things, but very little to pay John Smith’s campaign bills. Campaign finance law limits to a bare minimum ($5,000 per election) the amount a party can simply give to a candidate, so direct transfers are not an option. See §30116(a)(2). Similarly, the caps on coordinated expenditures are set so low in comparison with a campaign’s total expenses as to make that spending stream inconsequential. See supra, at 7; Brief for Federal Respondents 21 (noting, for example, that partycoordinated expenditures in House races have never exceeded 1% of total campaign spending). That means the overwhelming majority of the contributions the John Smith Victory Fund collects—again, before today’s decision—will go to party spending that only incidentally (even if meaningfully) benefits the candidate. The money may be spent, for example, on improving get-out-the-vote operations; covering the party’s administrative costs; or supporting down—————— 3 See, e.g., Levine, Soft Money Is Back (“[S]tate Republican parties transferred nearly every dollar they received from the Trump Victory Committee to the RNC”); K. Vogel & I. Arnsdorf, Clinton Fundraising Leaves Little for State Parties, Politico, May 2, 2016 (The vast majority of the millions that the Hillary Victory Fund gave state parties was “quickly transferred to the DNC, usually within a day or two”); K. EversHillstrom, Trump Raised Record Money for State Parties, Then His RNC Took It Back, OpenSecrets, Feb. 24, 2021 (“On Oct. 15, the Alaska Republican Party received nearly $2.7 million from Trump Victory. The same day, it transferred the exact same sum back to the RNC”); ibid. (“The Nebraska Democratic Party transferred $4.3 million to the DNC on Oct. 22, one day after it received the exact same total from the Biden Victory Fund”); ibid. (“Dozens of state parties in deep red or blue states employed the exact same strategy”).