Harris’ campaign managed to raise an impressive $361 million in August.
Donors from Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood were crucial in supporting Vice President Kamala Harris’s August fundraising efforts.
The surge has provided the Democrats with a significant financial edge over former President Donald Trump, as they head into the most costly phase of the presidential election, according to a recent report by Fortune.
With an amazing $361 million raised by Harris’ campaign in August, the Democratic party now has $404 million in cash on hand.
But in the same time frame, Trump’s campaign raised $130 million, spending $32 million more than it brought in because of an expensive ad campaign meant to stymie Harris’s momentum.
Harris Establishes Lead in Financial Race
The reserves of Trump’s main super political action committee (PAC), Make America Great Again Inc., also decreased.
Harris has established a sizable lead in the financial contest despite the close polling.
In order to raise money, the Vice President held a number of prestigious events in wealthy Californian communities like San Francisco and the Hamptons.
For the last few months before Election Day, her campaign and the super PAC Future Forward PAC have secured $421 million in paid media, almost doubling the $216 million that Trump and MAGA Inc. had secured.
Harris has received a lot of support from the financial sector.
Prominent backers include Bessemer Venture Partners’ Robert Stavis, Bruce Karsh of Oaktree Capital Management, and Sadek Wahba, co-founder of I Squared Capital.
Famous oil trader Andy Hall, vice chair of JPMorgan Chase, and Janice Savin Williams of Siebert Williams Shanke are among the other noteworthy donors.
Hollywood has also thrown its support behind Harris, with contributions to her campaign coming from Scarlett Johansson, Frances McDormand, and Carol Burnett.
In addition to conventional fundraising, Harris has received a lot of support from the Pacific Environmental Coalition, a nonprofit headed by venture capitalist Matt Cohler, and Future Forward PAC, which raised $36 million in August thanks to $3 million in donations from Dustin Moskovitz, the co-founder of Facebook.
Christian Larsen, a co-founder of Ripple Labs, made a notable donation of $1 million in XRP cryptocurrency, illustrating the expanding relationship between digital assets and political financing.
Trump Sees New Sources of Support
Conversely, the campaign of Donald Trump has encountered fresh funding sources, especially from the cryptocurrency sector, which he has aggressively courted.
The CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, Elon Musk, gave the National Republican Congressional Committee $289,100, his biggest known political donation to date.
In order to support Trump and House Republicans, Musk has also established a super PAC; however, the identity of its donors will not be made public until the following month.
Longtime Republican backers who had refrained from supporting Trump in the past, such as hedge fund manager Paul Singer, have now begun to do so.
Among the well-known donors backing Trump and the GOP in August were Edward Glazer, the owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Thomas Peterffy, chairman of Interactive Brokers Group, and Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz.
Casino magnates Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta as well as billionaire Diane Hendricks, who donated $10 million to MAGA Inc., made significant additional contributions.