In the waning days of President Joe Biden’s doomed reelection campaign, Californians were contributing a tepid $176,000 a day on average to his campaign. But the moment Vice President Kamala Harris took his place, donations from her home state skyrocketed tenfold, then remained buoyant, funneling into her war chest at roughly $1 million a day.
And Harris is coming back for more.
On Saturday, she will be in San Francisco, where she spent years as District Attorney, attending her second fundraiser here in two months, hosted by Alex Tourk, founder of a public affairs firm and a former aide to San Francisco mayors Willie Brown and Gavin Newsom, now governor.
Harris’s astounding donation numbers through the end of August, released by the Federal Election Commission last week, appear to reaffirm the wisdom of Biden’s tortured decision to drop out in late July and reflect California’s financial influence over the presidential race that, with just five weeks until Election Day, remains in a dead heat between Democrat Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump.
“The particularly sharp rise in contributions shows that Democrats like her are excited by her as a candidate and also think they have a real shot at winning,” said Thad Kousser, a UC San Diego political science professor.
Trump’s financial support in the heavily Democratic Golden State, meanwhile, is a fraction of Harris’s, reflecting his measure of support at the ballot box here when he lost reelection to Biden in 2020. A third of California voters cast their ballots for Trump four years ago, and now as Trump faces Harris in his second attempt at another term, only a quarter of all the donations from Californians are going to Trump.
Corrin Rankin, vice chair of the California Republican Party, contends that Harris needs all that extra cash to compete with Trump’s name recognition.
“It’s a necessity for her to spend that money to get her name out there,” Rankin said. “She’s not a household name.”
Although the Democratic ticket has far out-raised the Trump-Vance ticket in California overall, Trump’s total number of monthly contributions here was higher for the months before July than the Biden campaign. In June, Biden’s campaign received about 57,000 contributions, and Trump received 66,000 from Golden State residents. Trump’s campaign numbers rose slightly for July and August, but after Harris’ ascendance, the number of Democratic contributions more than doubled in July and reached nearly 194,000 in August.
Some of the recent direct donors to Harris’s campaign — maxing out their contribution limits at $3,300 — include Hollywood celebrities Ellen Degeneres and Carol Burnett, along with Bay Area residents such as trial lawyer Jonathan Gertler, from San Rafael, and software engineer Karel Driesen, from Los Altos.
Gertler said he ultimately would have donated to Biden’s campaign had he remained in the race but it would have been a desperation move “without much hope that he would win.”
When Harris became the nominee, the longtime Democrat said, “I became not optimistic, but hopeful. I had more reason to think she might win and no reason to think she didn’t need the money.”
Driesen, who was born in Belgium and became a U.S. citizen in time to vote for the reelection of President Barack Obama, said that when Harris took over, “it felt like my support could actually make a difference.”
The change in donations before and after Biden dropped out of the race on July 21 — nearly a month after his disastrous debate performance against Trump — is startling. By June 30, Biden’s re-election committee nationally had raised just $91 million more than Trump — $312 million to Trump’s $221 million. But when Harris became the nominee, the gap grew dramatically, with the Democratic presidential ticket in total hauling in more than double Trump’s take, according to the most recent campaign finance reports with donations through Aug. 31.
Including Biden’s campaign cash carrying over, Harris’s total contributions from across the country reached $706 million, compared with $313 million raised by the Trump campaign.
Of the $706 million for Harris, California has been the goldmine: Some $93 million came from her home state. That’s three times what Trump raised from Californians during the same time period — $30 million through August 31.
Many of those Californians contributing to the presidential campaigns understand their money could do more than their vote in the deep blue state.
“A lot of people like to give nationally, because their vote as a Californian isn’t going to sway the Republicans on a national level. But if they give their dollars, that’s a way for them to be helpful,” Rankin, the Republican vice chair, said.
Elisabeth Malloy, 83, who contributed $1,000 to Trump on Aug. 23, isn’t worried too much about his losing the money race.
“Money does matter, but Trump has built things cheaper, faster than others, ahead of schedule,” she said, confident that he will run a winning campaign with less money. “I want this country to be run by a businessman, and he has proven himself.”
Indeed, there’s a whole lot more money out there to support Harris and Trump that isn’t flowing directly into their campaign coffers. And Trump is winning that game.
Outside groups supporting Trump, including PACs and SuperPACS that don’t have donation limits, have raised $310 million through Aug. 21, the most recent data available. Those supporting Harris have raised $275 million.
In the end, though, how much will more money matter? The country is intensely polarized between Trump and Harris, and while there may be a fraction of undecided voters, most people have made up their minds.
“A lot of what campaigns are spending their money on now is not persuasion but on mobilization, ensuring that anyone who leans in their direction is getting out to the polls,” Kousser said. “So even if Donald Trump has this wall of support, Kamala Harris wants to make sure everyone on her side is casting a ballot. That’s the ability that can be unlocked by the fundraising that’s coming in today.”
That doesn’t make Gertler that much more confident that Harris can beat Trump, however.
“I’m terrified about the election in November.”