Harris raises $200 million in first week to build war chest
Vice President Kamala Harris raised $200 million in her first week as a 2024 presidential contender, highlighting the surge of enthusiasm among Democrats for their new presumptive nominee that’s also showing up in polls.
Harris’ favorability rating rose to 43% from 35% in a week, and Americans are more enthusiastic about her candidacy than about former President Donald Trump’s, according to an ABC News poll published Sunday. Her fundraising surge also counters a Republican blitz that put Trump ahead in the money race.
It’s the latest demonstration of how Democrats are coalescing behind the vice president, who launched her candidacy last week after President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign and endorsed her.
Harris’ campaign said 66% of her fundraising tally came from first-time donors. The latest haul expands the $81 million she raised in the first day after Biden’s exit, which the campaign called the largest 24-hour influx of funds raised of any candidate in history.
“It’s just a whole new vibe to the campaign,” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who’s on a short list of potential Harris running mates, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
Biden’s exit has forced the Trump-Vance campaign to shift focus to a younger opponent with a different ideological profile. Walz sought to project confidence, claiming “there isn’t going to be a pivot because they don’t have any new plans.”
Both candidates were on the attack over the weekend, with Trump courting the crypto industry, saying he’d fire Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler and branding Harris an “out-of-touch San Francisco liberal” at a rally in Minnesota.
Harris made a previously scheduled fundraising stop at a theater in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where she labeled rhetoric by Trump and his Republican running mate J.D. Vance “weird.” She plans to campaign in Atlanta on Tuesday.
New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, a Republican who endorsed Nikki Haley for president before falling in line to back Trump, said the contest is likely to settle back into “essentially a neck-and-neck race” after a Harris surge.
“I mean, this is the honeymoon period,” he said on ABC’s This Week. “The first poll, I believe, that will actually matter is the Wednesday after Labor Day.”
Harris has already sewn up the support of enough delegates to clinch the nomination. A key endorsement – by former President Barack Obama – came on Friday.
Biden’s debate debacle and the ensuing intra-party fight over his future damaged his campaign’s finances as donors backed away from an 81-year-old president, who faced questions about his mental acuity and ability to beat Trump in the election in November.
The Biden campaign entered July with $96 million cash on hand following a spending spree that depleted about 93% of the money it raised in June. The burn rate far exceeded Trump’s, whose campaign spent just 46% of the money it raised in June and had $128 million in the bank. Biden’s campaign continued to spend even as some polls showed Trump with an edge after their debate and as calls for the incumbent to end his bid grew.
It was a stunning turnaround from earlier in the contest, when Biden built up a sizable money advantage, aided in part by the lack of a serious Democratic challenger and with Trump dealing with an at-times bitter GOP primary and multiple court cases that drained his coffers.
Trump’s fundraising has surged in recent months – bolstered by appeals to big-dollar Republican donors and support from Wall Street and corporate executives drawn to his economic agenda.
Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk, the world’s richest person according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, said he is “making some donations” to a super political action committee supporting the former president, though at a “much lower level” than has been reported. People familiar with the matter had said Musk is pledging to pour $45 million a month into the pro-Trump group.
Trump and the Republican National Committee raised $331 million in the second quarter, beating the $264 million Biden and the Democratic National Committee raised.
Democratic Wall Street donors are also mobilizing to tap their networks and help Harris close the fundraising gap with Trump.
Trump’s campaign filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission claiming Biden’s transfer of his $96 million violates the law. It poses a novel legal question, but many campaign finance experts say the transfer is probably allowed.
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(With assistance from Eric Martin.)