Kamala Harris breaks fundraising record just two days after Biden’s withdrawal

Kamala Harris’ path to the Democratic presidential nomination has encouraged donations to her campaign. By late Monday, less than 48 hours after President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the race, the vice president had already raised over $100 million. According to the progressive consultancy MiddleSeat, it is the best fundraising effort in the history of the Democratic party. Multimillionaire donors aside, her success is largely due to the group of women donors who for decades have accompanied her in her career, advancing with her. Even as Harris continued to insist that Biden would be the party’s nominee, these loyal allies began acting to ensure that her campaign would not start from scratch. This amount is added to the $96 million that Joe Biden’s campaign had already accumulated, and which a handful of Republicans will try to block in order to hinder the campaign efforts of the current vice president, since they consider that giving her automatic access would violate the rules of the game.

The Republican nominee, Donald Trump, declared having raised more than $50 million in the 24 hours that followed his conviction for the hush-money trial on May 30. At the end of March, Biden reaped more than $25 million in a single event in New York, and $38 million in the four days after his disastrous performance at the debate between him and Trump on June 27. But the absolute record is now held by Kamala Harris, who has been supported by important donors from Wall Street, Silicon Valley — with billionaire Reid Hoffman at the helm, although other big names in Big Tech such as Elon Musk are aligned with Trump — and Hollywood. The total also includes more modest donations from hundreds of thousands of new donors spurred by the change. And a prominent place is held by the donors of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Just minutes after the Democratic party filed the necessary documents on Sunday to change the name of the campaign committee (from Biden for President to Harris for President), Democratic aides reported being overwhelmed by calls from previously despondent donors now willing to fund Harris. A Silicon Valley entrepreneur raised more than a million dollars in 30 minutes. Alexandra Acker-Lyons, a Democratic donor adviser who has spent recent days laying the groundwork for Harris amid growing speculation about a Biden withdrawal, said she had received a barrage of emails, texts and calls with pledges. ““People who hadn’t given at all asking where to give,” she told The New York Times on Sunday.

Important Democratic donors, those capable of writing a seven- or eight-figure check and who until Sunday unreservedly supported Biden, immediately joined Harris’ campaign, including Alex Soros, the youngest son and heir of the famous philanthropist — and bête noire of the Republicans—George Soros. The heir apparent posted a photograph of himself with Harris on X: “Long live the American dream!”

Support not only comes from individuals; also key is the role played by Democratic platforms that guide large donors towards certain causes; that is, by political pressure groups that are also dominated by women. Emily’s List, which brings together large donors who defend abortion rights and which supported Harris during her vice presidency, offered to contribute. Way to Win, a group with the same goals that includes many Harris supporters, also backed the vice president.

Harris’ background has also attracted other donors. Raj Goyle, an influential Democrat of Indian descent, announced “an unprecedented level of South Asian support” for Harris, whose mother Shyamala Gopalan was born in India. Harris also has her own donors, those who supported her in the 2020 election primaries until she withdrew in favor of Biden. One of them, Steve Phillips, a long-time supporter, said on Sunday that he was encouraging donors and groups he worked with to publicly support Harris, as well as discouraging those who were thinking of challenging her for office. Because, while not all Democratic donors have expressed support for Harris, it is also true that none have endorsed a different candidate for the presidential nomination. Some donors prefer an open convention, a kind of mini-primary in which other “more moderate” candidates could vie for the nomination.

But the striking silence of some party leaders, such as Barack Obama, and the reluctance of prominent donors underscore how for now, the presidential nomination is far from being official. The truth is that the candidate endorsed by Biden starts off with an enormous financial advantage, given her current donor base, while her hypothetical rivals would start from scratch, which would not necessarily be an insurmountable obstacle. If another Democrat wins the nomination, he or she could also claim the $96 million raised by Biden’s campaign, but the process would take years. Another less radical, but equally arduous, solution would be for Biden to transfer the funds to the Democratic National Committee, or choose a billionaire candidate, such as Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, heir to the Hyatt luxury hotel chain, who would be able to self-finance without the need for donations.

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