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The stories that matter on money and politics in the race for the White House
Kamala Harris has raised more than $500mn since entering the White House race, boosted by donor enthusiasm during this week’s Democratic National Convention.
The US vice-president has brought in $540mn since she replaced President Joe Biden at the top of the party’s ticket for November’s election, including $82mn during DNC week, according to a memorandum from campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon. The total comprises money flowing to the campaign, the Democratic National Committee and joint fundraising committees.
O’Malley Dillon called the haul “a record for any campaign in history”.
The fundraising coalition crossed the $500mn mark on Thursday, just before Harris took to the stage at the DNC in Chicago for the most important speech of her life, and “immediately after . . . we saw our best fundraising hour since launch day”, O’Malley Dillon wrote.
She also said there had been “unprecedented grassroots donations” during the convention week, with a third of donations coming from first-time contributors. Of those new donors, 20 per cent were young voters and two-thirds were women.
During the four-day Democratic gathering, the party made efforts to rebrand itself as the nation’s patriotic champions, with the vice-president casting the defeat of Donald Trump on election day as a country-loving act.
“It is now our turn to do what generations before us have done,” Harris said to a packed flag-waving crowd who cheered her as the candidate of change. “Guided by optimism and faith, to fight for this country we love.”
The new fundraising figure comes after Harris brought in four times as much as Trump in July: $204mn compared with the former president’s $48mn, according to a Financial Times analysis of federal filings, potentially closing a fundraising gap the Republican had opened over Biden.
Harris’s campaign ended July with $220mn in cash on hand, while Trump’s campaign had $151mn.
However, the former president is still cashing cheques from megadonors, including a $50mn contribution from billionaire Timothy Mellon, scion of the US banking dynasty, last month. During a swing state campaign stop on Friday, Trump attacked Harris for being a policy “flip flopper” and welcomed the endorsement of ex-Democrat Robert F Kennedy Jr, who suspended his own long-shot presidential bid.
With the electric energy for Harris still palpable, Trump campaign pollsters Tony Fabrizio and Travis Tunis conceded in a memorandum on Saturday that “post-DNC we will likely see another small (albeit temporary) bounce for Harris in the public polls”.
Harris is leading Trump by 3.6 points nationally, according to a FiveThirtyEight polling average.
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