Kamala Harris is raising record-breaking amounts of donations and it could help her defeat Trump

On July 28th, Kamala Harris' campaign announced that she raised $200 million in donations and signed up over one hundred thousand new volunteers in the week after she became the presumptive 2024 Democratic Presidential Nominee.

"In the week since we got started, @KamalaHarris has raised $200 million dollars," Harris campaign Deputy Manager Rob Flaherty wrote on X about Harris' big achievement just one week into her bid for the presidency.

"66% of that is from new donors. We've signed up 170,000 new volunteers," Flaherty continued. "A people-powered campaign for a people-powered presidency!"

Business Insider reported that Harris' $200 million in new donations add to the $95 million dollar war chest that she inherited from Joe Biden after he withdrew from the race. But such stunning success was predictable following the significant amount of donations that began rolling in after Harris announced her candidacy.

Biden officially dropped out of the 2024 election on July 21st and later endorsed Vice President Harris to replace him at the top of the ticket as the Democratic Party's ticket, a move that injected the Democrats and American left with new energy and Harris' new campaign with a lot of cash. 

Harris still isn’t the Democratic Party’s nominee just yet, but she announced her candidacy in the wake of Biden’s endorsement, which spurred on one of the greatest donation runs of the election cycle, according to a report from ActBlue.

ActBlue is a non-profit organization focused on collecting small-dollar donations for the Democratic Party, and the group reported on the social media platform X that grassroots donations to Harris following her campaign launch quickly reached the tens of millions. 

“Small-dollar donors raise over $27.5 million on ActBlue in the first 5 hours of Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign. Grassroots supporters are energized and excited to support her as the Democratic nominee,” ActBlue wrote on July 21st. 

While $27.5 million dollars in just a few hours may seem like a lot of money, things only got better for Harris and the Democrats since the donations kept flowing into the party's coffers.

“As of 9pm ET, grassroots supporters have raised $46.7 million through ActBlue following Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign launch. This has been the biggest fundraising day of the 2024 cycle,” ActBlue revealed on X. 

“Small-dollar donors are fired up and ready to take on this election,” the nonprofit group added. The total number of small-dollar donations was later revised to $49.6 million by Vice President Harris’ campaign aide Brian Fallon. 

Grassroots donations from small donors weren't the only funds flowing into the Harris campaign either. Natasha Korecki of NBC News reported that large-dollar donors had already pledged their money to Harris and her fight to win the White House.

“The floodgates will open,” Biden Victory Fund Finance Chair Chris Korge told NBC News. “There’s been a lot of people holding back contributions that will now contribute because the whole thing—that whole situation was paralyzing our fundraising.” 

Korge also said that some large donors were moved by Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 election race. “People are emotional because they knew how hard it was to make this decision after doing an incredible job,” Korge explained.

“Major donors are incredibly receptive of his endorsement and are genuinely excited. I think this is going to create a tidal wave of donations,” Korge continued. How things will play out now, has yet to be seen, but it's clear that the left has been re-energized by Harris entering the race as the presumptive Democratic nominee.

The Hill’s Lauren Sforza also reported at the time on the flood of donations flowing into Democratic coffers following Harris’ campaign announcement and noted that the situation was a big change from what had been happening since the end of June. 

Trump was catching up to the Biden campaign’s fundraising lead in recent weeks due to Biden’s poor performance during their June 27th debate, an incident that reportedly led big-dollar donors to freeze some $90 million from Biden’s re-elect campaign donations. 

Natasha Korecki reported that grassroots donations also “substantially diminished” in the weeks that followed Biden’s debate with Trump. However, the situation appears to have reversed donations spigot has been turned back on for Harris. 

More than 2.4 million unique small-dollar donors gave more than 10.4 million donations to 15,927 campaigns and organizations via ActBlue in the first quarter of the year, which totaled over $460 million at an average contribution size of $42.73 dollars according to the fundraising organization. 

“Small-dollar donors are giving during pivotal moments, especially those that contrast President Biden’s vision for the country against that of the MAGA Republican agenda, with 86.3% of all donors giving at least one federal donation,” ActBlue noted. 

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