Within a mere three months of joining the presidential race in July, following the Democratic Party’s push for President Joe Biden to withdraw, Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign contributions have surged remarkably. Since her entry, her campaign, along with a joint fundraising committee associated with it, has amassed over $1 billion. This staggering amount doesn’t even account for the significant contributions made to super PACs supporting Harris. This level of funding in such a brief period is unprecedented in presidential campaign history. “It’s clear that Harris has done something absolutely unprecedented,” Sarah Bryner, the research director at OpenSecrets, observed. It is reported that Harris reached the $1 billion milestone within 80 days.
CNN has indicated that from the start of July to the end of September, ex-President Donald Trump, in collaboration with the Republican National Committee, managed to raise $430 million. Throughout the entirety of 2024, Trump’s fundraising efforts have surpassed $850 million, not including the substantial funds from super PACs backing his campaign. Before their debate in late June, Trump was already outpacing Biden. The debate highlighted Biden’s apparent cognitive struggles, leading to a decline in his poll ratings. Media allies of the Democrats started acknowledging that Trump was on track for a significant victory in November. Nonetheless, with Biden stepping down and Harris, who had not previously garnered any votes in a presidential primary, stepping in as the nominee, the dynamics began to change.
What was shaping up to be a landslide victory, with states like Arizona, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina no longer considered battlegrounds, has now become a closely contested race. Margins in over half a dozen states have narrowed to single digits. The New York Times has highlighted that the substantial financial boost to Harris’s campaign has “remade the race,” funneling hundreds of millions into key battleground states that will decide the election’s outcome. The report also mentions that the Republicans are injecting considerable funds into the campaign, with over $100 million in the last few weeks alone.
