Kamala Harris’s path to the Democratic nomination has boosted donations to her campaign. By late Monday, her first effective day as a presidential candidate, the vice president had raised more than $100 million (€92 million). According to the progressive consultancy MiddleSeat, this is “the best fundraising in the history of the Democratic Party.” Billionaire donors aside, the success is largely due to the group of female donors who have accompanied her in her career for decades, advancing with her. Even as Harris continued to insist that Biden would be the party’s candidate, these faithful allies began to move their pieces to ensure that her campaign did not start from scratch. This amount is in addition to the $96 million that Joe Biden already had in the campaign coffers, and that a handful of Republicans will try to block to torpedo the current vice president’s career, since they consider that automatic succession violates the rules of the game.
Republican candidate Donald Trump said he raised more than $50 million in the 24 hours following his conviction for the Stormy Daniels caseon May 30. Biden raised more than 25 million in a single event in New York at the end of March, and 38 million in the four days following his disastrous performance in the debate against Trump on June 27. But the absolute record is held by Kamala Harris, who has been supported by important donors from Wall Street, Silicon Valley —the billionaire Reid Hoffman at the head, although other big names from Big Tech such as Elon Musk have surrendered to Trump— and Hollywood. The total also includes modest donations, from hundreds of thousands of new donors spurred on by the change. And in a prominent place, the donors of the so-called bay areaas San Francisco is known, who built the platform for the great leap.
Just a few minutes after the party submitted the necessary documents to change the name of the campaign committee (from Biden for President to Harris for President), Democratic advisers were inundated Sunday with calls from previously discouraged donors eager to fund Harris. One Silicon Valley entrepreneur raised more than $1 million in 30 minutes. Alexandra Acker-Lyons, a Democratic donor adviser who has spent the past few days laying the groundwork for Harris amid mounting speculation that Biden might drop out, said she had “been inundated with emails, texts and calls” with pledges. “People who hadn’t donated anything were asking where to donate,” she said Sunday.
Major Democratic donors, capable of writing a seven- or eight-figure check and who until Sunday had been wholeheartedly supporting Biden, immediately joined Harris’s candidacy, such as Hoffman and Alex Soros, the youngest son and heir of the famous philanthropist — and Republicans’ bête noire — George Soros. The family’s heir posted a photo of himself and Harris on the social network X (formerly Twitter) with an enthusiastic message: “Long live the American dream!”
Support is not only coming from individuals, but also from Democratic platforms that direct big donors towards certain causes; that is, from political pressure groups, also dominated by women. Emily’s List, which groups together big donors who defend abortion rights and which supported Harris during her vice presidency, offered to contribute to the event. Way to Win, a group with the same objective that includes many of Harris’s supporters, also supported the vice president.
Harris’ ethnicity also serves as a rallying point. Raj Goyle, an influential Democrat of Indian origin, announced “an unprecedented level of South Asian support” for the candidate for the nomination. Harris also has her own donors, those who supported her in the 2020 election primaries until she threw in the towel in favor of Biden. One of them, Steve Phillips, a long-time supporter of hers, said on Sunday that he was encouraging the donors and groups he worked with to publicly support the candidate, as well as to dissuade those who were thinking of challenging her for the incumbency, to close ranks around her. Because, just as not all Democratic donors have expressed their support for Harris, it is also true that none have supported another candidate for the presidential nomination. They are mostly those who prefer an open convention, a kind of mini-primary in which other candidates participate who are more moderate than the liberal profile, too much for some, of Harris.
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But the conspicuous silence of some party leaders, such as Barack Obama, and the reluctance of prominent donors go hand in hand, and for now the presidential nomination is far from being announced. Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, said he was in favor of Democratic delegates choosing a candidate from one of the swing states, although he expressed optimism about the change. Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla defended “an open process at the convention and not a coronation” like Harris’s. Mike Novogratz, an investor in cryptocurrencies — a sector that has gone over to the Republicans with both arms and baggage — expressed his doubts about Harris’ suitability, but gave her the benefit of the doubt: “The donor community I speak to doesn’t think she’s the best to win, but they all think she deserves a fair chance.”
The truth is that Biden’s nominee has a huge financial advantage, given her current donor base, and her hypothetical rivals would be starting from scratch, which would not necessarily be an insurmountable obstacle. If another Democrat were to win the nomination, he or she could claim the $96 million raised by Biden’s campaign in court, 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 to choose a billionaire candidate, such as Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, heir to the Hyatt luxury hotel chain, who would be able to finance himself without donations.
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