In June 2008, the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee for President, Barack Obama (D-IL), announced that he would opt out of the Presidential Election Campaign Fund, declining upwards of $80 million in public financing for his general election bid and choosing instead to rely solely on private donations.

The last time candidates for President relied solely on private contributions to finance their general election campaigns was in 1972, when incumbent President Richard Nixon (R-CA) faced George McGovern (D-SD).

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Presidential Election Campaign Fund, which was established in the 1970s, is “financed exclusively by voluntary contributions from U.S. taxpayers who can choose to earmark $3 of their annual federal income taxes for the fund… [T]he proportion of taxpayers who choose to earmark part of their taxes for the fund has declined steadily over the past three decades to only 10 percent in 2004, suggesting that the program has little support.”