Kamala Harris needs lots of cash. Luckily for her, she has a history of finding it. Since launching her campaign 108 days before the election, she raised $200 million in her first week atop the ticket to help close the $32 million gap between outgoing president Joe Biden’s campaign and Donald Trump’s war chest. Forbes staff writer Zach Everson joins "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss.
Read the full article on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2024/07/28/kamala-harris-billionaires-presidential-campaign-contributions-donations-cash/
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Read the full article on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2024/07/28/kamala-harris-billionaires-presidential-campaign-contributions-donations-cash/
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis with Forbes Breaking News. Joining me now is my Forbes
00:07colleague, staff writer Zach Everson. Zach, thanks for coming on.
00:12Thanks for having me on. I am in COVID jail, so this might be the only adult conversation
00:15I get all day.
00:16Well, I am grateful to have you. I'm grateful for the conversation. And we have seen a really
00:22intense political week. Last week, we saw President Joe Biden drop out of the race.
00:28Months later, he endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris. Since then, she has become
00:33the likely Democratic nominee, and she has seen some historic fundraising numbers. So
00:38to start off the conversation, talk to us about those numbers.
00:41Yeah, she's doing gag busters. You know, there was really enthusiasm was lagging for President
00:47Biden's reelection effort. But once Harris came to the top of the ticket, the money started
00:52flowing. Her spokesperson tweeted the other day that they brought in over $200 million
00:57in her first week atop the ticket, which is just an astronomical amount of money.
01:03And you wrote this for Forbes. Billionaires love Kamala Harris for 2020. How many are
01:07backing her for 2024? Out of this over $200 million, is a lot of that money from billionaire
01:13donors?
01:15We don't really know that yet. And that actually, it can't be because this is just campaign
01:20donations that we're looking at. And those are capped at $3,300 per person. So, you know,
01:25billionaires want to support her with donations directly to her campaign. There's a limit
01:29that they can do. The big money that they're able to back her with is if they were to support
01:33it to a super cap, super pack that was affiliated with her, you know, working on her behalf.
01:38So over $200 million in just a week. That's incredible for any campaign to see. How does
01:45this compare to Trump's war chest?
01:47Well, he had a $32 million advantage when she became the as of I guess it's the end
01:56of May or the end of June 30th, the end of June. So that $32 million advantage is largely
02:02evaporated. You know, we'll get a better read on that in a couple of weeks when the campaigns
02:05have to post their July numbers.
02:09This isn't the first time that Vice President Kamala Harris is running for president. She
02:13ran during the 2020 race, but her campaign then didn't even make it to the year 2020.
02:18She suspended her campaign back in 2019. But you're reporting she did have the most billionaire
02:25donors. Talk to us about them.
02:28Yeah, I was really surprised to see this. This is something that one of my colleagues
02:32reported back at the time that through September 2019, when we did this analysis, 47 billionaires
02:38and their spouses had donated to Harris. Next up was Cory Booker, who had 45, and then
02:44Joe Biden at the time had 44. So it was really surprising seeing that much money coalesced
02:50from wealthy people behind Harris so early, especially she didn't last all that long.
02:56I don't know if people really thought she was much of a serious candidate at the time.
03:01You know, as you mentioned, she didn't even last until 2020, the year of the election.
03:06And I think what most people remember from her candidacy is Maya Rudolph's impersonation
03:11on Saturday Night Live.
03:1447 billionaires and their spouses donated back then. Have they all or some donated to
03:21Biden's reelection campaign and or now Kamala Harris's campaign?
03:26Yeah, I was also surprised that this number is a bit lower. So three of those billionaires
03:31had passed away in the last few years. So up to 44 billionaires, 26 of them or 60 percent
03:38had donated to Biden's reelection as of the end of May. And again, this we're just looking
03:43at campaign donations. So it's quite possible that some of these billionaires or their spouses
03:47did back Biden's efforts through donations to joint fundraising committees or the Democratic
03:54National Committee or Super PACs. But looking at just donations to the campaign, you know,
03:59it's 40 percent of them did not donate directly to Biden.
04:04Let's name some names here. Who are some of those most notable billionaires first that
04:08donated to Biden's reelection campaign?
04:10Yeah, so that would be Steven Spielberg, director. I don't know if I actually needed to include
04:16what his job was. I suspect everybody knows that his wife, Kate Capshaw, Reid Hoffman,
04:21the founder of LinkedIn and Laurie Pearl Jobs, an entrepreneur and philanthropist, and inherited
04:27her money from her late husband, Steve Jobs.
04:30And what about those billionaires that donated back to Biden or Harris in 2020, but didn't
04:36donate to Biden once again in 2024?
04:40So the names that stood out here were George Lucas and Craig Newmark, I think from Craig's
04:44list, I think were the two names that most people would would recognize from that list.
04:49And did any billionaire go on the record and say why to you or to anyone in general? They
04:55did not donate again to Biden's reelection campaign.
05:00Yeah, so we stopped to some of them and there was one, Jim Clark, whose whose wife had been
05:06one of those people who donated to Harris, but not Biden.
05:10He said they just weren't all that enthused with Biden, that they they just felt it was
05:14time for him not to run and that they were very excited about about Harris running and
05:18that his wife had supported her in the past and they plan to do so again in the future.
05:22And I know you said earlier there's a threshold amount of money you can give to a
05:27campaign. What is that number?
05:29And then what are those billionaires who are donating more doing to work around that?
05:35Sure, so there the limit is three thousand three hundred dollars per election, and they
05:39count the primary and the general election separately so they can donate up to six
05:44thousand six hundred dollars to a presidential campaign during the four year cycle.
05:49So, you know, when we look at billionaire support by donating to a campaign, we're not
05:52talking about money that's really going to matter all that much.
05:55It's just a couple hundred thousand dollars.
05:57But what matters is that they're showing that they do support this candidate.
06:00And there are other avenues for them to donate through, the biggest one being super PACs
06:04where they can donate an unlimited amount of money.
06:07You know, as we talked about a few weeks ago, Timothy Mellon, a Trump backer, donated
06:12seventy five million dollars to a super PAC working on behalf of Trump.
06:16So, you know, the fact that all these billionaires are interested in Kamala Harris, you
06:21know, it does mean that there could be some donations coming her way to benefit her
06:26campaign via super PACs.
06:29I mean, up until last week, Joe Biden was running for president.
06:32Joe Biden was the likely Democratic nominee.
06:34Now it's Vice President Kamala Harris.
06:37So I am curious what that transfer of money looks like.
06:40And is that legal?
06:42Can she legally get all of his money for the reelection campaign?
06:47We will find out in about five years, I'm going to guess, you know, her name.
06:52It was very seamless from a looking at FEC financial aspect.
06:56You know, her name just came in on an updated statement of authorization where she was
07:00listed as the candidate. If you search it up now, it just shows Kamala Harris, whereas
07:04like previous elections, if you look at that very same committee, it shows Joe Biden.
07:09So the Trump campaign, though, is arguing that she should not get that money.
07:14They're saying it's it's violation of the law.
07:16The experts that we spoke to, though, think there's no problem at all with doing this
07:21since she was on the ticket.
07:23And, you know, the FEC, as I hinted at earlier, it takes forever to figure out these kind
07:28of things. So it would be years.
07:30I mean, Harris could be done with a second term by the by the time the FEC were to
07:34issue something definitive on it.
07:36Zach, you report on money in politics.
07:39So when you're looking at all of these millions of dollars raised in such a short
07:43amount of time, does anything surprise you?
07:46Is anything sticking out to you?
07:48She is catalyzing the Democratic base in a way that Joe Biden just wasn't.
07:52And you're seeing that enthusiasm from several places.
07:54You know, they've they've mentioned that they've had a huge swell in volunteers and
07:58you're seeing it in this money. And that's that's money that's going to matter.
08:01You know, that stuff they can use for turning out the ground game and trying to get all
08:05of their voters to the polls, especially in those swing states.
08:09Zach Everson, per usual, I appreciate your time.
08:11My pleasure.