With the aid of bundlers who have supported her in previous elections, Vice President Kamala Harris is already experiencing a surge of support from large-scale donors in the wake of President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the campaign, according to individuals familiar with the situation.
Major donors who had assisted Harris in raising money for her successful 2016 Senate campaign and her unsuccessful 2020 Democratic primary challenge mobilized and started reaching out to wealthy contributors moments after Biden declared he would withdraw from the presidential race and support Harris, according to these people who spoke to CNBC under the condition of anonymity in order to speak freely.
“I’ve been in touch with many of her supporters from New York to California and we are getting organized to start up the fundraising machine,” stated Jon Henes, the vice president’s national finance chair during her presidential bid in 2020. “I had more than 200 texts, calls, and emails today of people wanting to host events and make donations.”
According to a person with firsthand knowledge of the situation, one of the leading party fundraisers who is currently preparing to assist Harris is veteran Wall Street CEO Marc Lasry. When Lasry challenged Biden in the 2020 Democratic primary, she contributed to the vice president’s fundraising efforts. Subsequently, once Biden defeated Trump in that election cycle, he contributed money to his campaign.
However, not just large donors reacted to Biden’s announcement: ActBlue, a progressive donation platform, first claimed to have raised $27.5 million from modest contributors in the five hours following Biden’s endorsement of Harris. The business later declared that it had raised more than $45 million.
The Biden for President campaign quickly submitted paperwork to the Federal Election Commission to change its name to “Harris for President.”
However, the fact that a number of the party’s leading financiers had declared they would withhold money from a Biden-led ticket following his appalling performance in the June 27 debate against former President Donald Trump made their resurgence especially noteworthy.
According to a person familiar with the situation, venture capitalist Reid Hoffman intends to contribute even more to Harris’ campaign than he did during the 2024 presidential election cycle when he chose to favor Biden over Trump. According to Federal Election Commission records, Hoffman has contributed at least $10 million to pro-Biden political action committees thus far in this election cycle.
Hoffman posted a social media endorsement for Harris. A representative for Hoffman declined to comment.
According to some of the people who knew, Harris’ allies had planned a fundraiser with Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff for early August in the affluent New York Hamptons region before Biden withdrew. These contributors clarified that they were removing the email invitation because they were angry with Biden.
According to a person familiar with the event, the expectation now is that a Hamptons dinner next month would probably sell out, with many contributors coming off the sidelines to support Harris.
After Biden withdrew, Alexander Soros, the Democratic megadonor George Soros’ son, stated on social media that “it’s time for us all to unite around Kamala Harris and beat Donald Trump.”
However, the Democratic Party as a whole does not appear to share Harris’s major donor backing, indicating that she still has some work to do to win them over.
The chairman of Choice Hotels and a significant contributor to Biden, Stewart Bainum Jr., told CNBC that he is staying neutral and won’t intervene on behalf of Harris because he believes there ought to be a fight at the next convention when other contenders should have the opportunity to lead the party. Chicago will host the Democratic National Convention in August.
A seasoned Biden fundraiser stated that Harris and any other candidates who wish to run for the nomination should have a “mini primary” in the weeks leading up to the convention.
However, Harris believes that having some donors hop on board right away will help her build up the nearly $95 million campaign war chest she will have after Biden withdraws from the race.
The approximately $96 million donation pool for the Biden campaign is likely readily available to Harris, as per Anna Massoglia, an investigations manager at OpenSecrets, a research center on campaign finance.
In an interview with CNBC, Massoglia stated, “The general consensus among most people that I’ve spoken with is that she can use the funding.”
Though she added that they constitute “a very small sliver” of lawyers’ opinions, Massoglia highlighted that some conservative election lawyers feel Harris must formally become the Democratic nominee before receiving full access to the campaign war chest.
Her access to campaign funds remains unclear, meanwhile, until election lawyers settle the dispute over whether Harris must be the official nominee. According to Massoglia, the same holds true for joint fundraising committee contributions and those made by the Democratic National Committee.
But if Harris doesn’t get the Democratic nomination, the alternatives become increasingly complicated. The campaign might then use those funds to create a political action committee (PAC) or another kind of group that would make expenditures in favor of the new nominee.
According to Massoglia, there are a number of drawbacks to that approach. PACs must pay higher advertising rates and are not permitted to work in tandem with the candidate.
Giving them a refund and asking them to donate to a different committee is an alternative. That would carry an additional risk, according to Massoglia, of contributors choosing not to contribute to the new campaign.
