Kamala Harris is many things. First female vice president; first Black and Asian woman to run for president. She is also champion in all categories of fundraising. How come she is losing this presidential election?
There is one race that Kamala Harris will definitely win, the campaign fundraising race. In just two and a half months, since Joe Biden announced that he was abandoning the fight for re-election, Kamala Harris’ campaign has collected a billion dollars.
Fundraising days and evenings compete for tens of millions of dollars: eighty-one million dollars in donations in the first twenty-four hours after his campaign launch in July; thirty-six million dollars in the twenty-four hours following his choice of Tim Walz as his running mate.
Forty-seven million dollars in the day following his successful debate against Trump on September 10, then numerous paying parties like in New York and San Francisco last month, which would have brought in between twenty-seven and twenty-eight million dollars each.
A billion dollars in eighty days, while in all of 2024, Trump and his campaign took home just over $850 million.
FULL VIEW
Money, it is constantly said, is the sinews of political war. I was in Pennsylvania yesterday, in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. Easy to see that all this money was used to buy large billboards along the roads, as well as television messages which tirelessly conclude that “Donald Trump is unfit to lead the United States”.
There is also the famous ground gamethese teams who go door to door, ensuring that people are registered on the electoral lists and that they are going to vote on November 5. The Democratic campaign, according to my colleagues who have moved from one swing state to another, dominates the field. Harris’ teams are larger, more active and more efficient.
Yet what do the polls say? That Donald Trump has regained the lead, according to Quinnipiac University, and is now one point ahead of Harris in Pennsylvania, two points in Wisconsin, four in Michigan. Regardless of the advertising bombardment, Donald Trump retains a force of attraction which obviously does not require an entire political apparatus to convince his supporters to follow him.
IT WAS SO MUCH BETTER… IN 2020
Even more worrying for Harris, she is even lagging behind Joe Biden’s polls at this time four years ago; Biden who – do I need to remind her? – had narrowly won this presidential election.
By taking the amalgamation of the polls carried out by the 538.com aggregators in 2020 and today, we see that Joe Biden had leads over Donald Trump, four years ago, of seven to eight points in Pennsylvania, in Wisconsin and Michigan. As of last week, Harris’ advantage over Trump in these states was no more than one point.
Money certainly does not guarantee victory. Talk to Hillary Clinton, who in 2016 raised twice as much as Trump and still ended up losing the presidential election. This close to Election Day, however, one would expect to see some spillover from Harris’ financial success into voters’ voting intentions.
Kamala Harris is missing something, while Trump maintains an ability to seduce his electorate which transcends traditional benchmarks, including that of money. Kamala Harris may have deep pockets, but it’s still not enough.
