Harris trounced Trump in August fundraising, bringing in $361 million. Can all of her money help her win votes?
On Friday Vice President Kamala Harris announced a massive August fundraising haul of $361 million, one that is nearly three times the $130 million former President Donald Trump reported.
August was the first full month that Harris was at the top of the ticket, and it marked a continuation of a dominant fundraising performance Harris began immediately after President Joe Biden stepped aside as Democrats’ presidential nominee. In the first two-and-a-half weeks of her campaign, she raised over $310 million.
Harris’s strong fundraising has completely reversed the fundraising advantage Trump once had on Biden. Democrats say they now have $404 million in the bank, compared to Republicans’ $295 million, and they are using it to try to expand the number of states their party is competitive in at both the presidential and congressional levels.
Harris’s fundraising the previous month was notable for its mix of small and large dollar donations, and for how much she seemed to activate new donors: According to the campaign, 66 percent of donations came from first-time contributors. The deadline for full financial filings for August is September 20, and those will reveal whether Harris was able to maintain that breadth of giving.
All told, Harris and Trump are expected to have spent more than $1 billion by the time the election is over. It’s a lot of money — but how much will it actually affect results?It’s more expensive than ever to run for president
Presidential campaigns are raising ever greater amounts of money because the amount required to run a successful campaign ballooned following the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. That decision allowed corporations and outside groups to spend unlimited money on elections, often via super PACs that operate independently of a campaign. 2020 marked the most expensive presidential election in US history.
“Presidential elections are incredibly expensive — at this point, a billion-dollar enterprise,” said Dan Weiner, director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s elections and government program. “You need enough money to mount a viable campaign.”
That money goes toward supporting staffers and field offices across the country; ads across television, newspapers, radio, and social platforms; polling and research; as well as voter outreach through rallies, door-knocking, and more.
Both grassroots support and big donors are critical to funding a presidential campaign. Citizens United gave the wealthiest donors outsize influence. But grassroots donations are a sign of enthusiasm: They don’t necessarily translate 1-to-1 to votes, but they also function as a signal to big donors about which candidates are the most viable.
