Kamala Harris’ fundraising operation has been so dominant that she has brought in more new donors than Donald Trump every single day heading into the final stretch of the election.
The vice president’s financial advantage is well-known, but most of the attention has gone to the candidates’ respective money totals. That money has allowed Harris to build up a much greater campaign apparatus than Trump, while the former president has had to rely more on outside super PACs for support.
But in some ways it’s the donors, not the money, that’s most revealing. Donors are a subset of voters, tending to reflect the most engaged supporters on either side. And Harris has a massive donor advantage: Her operation, carried over from President Joe Biden, has more than twice as many donors as Trump's campaign apparatus.
It didn’t always look like it was going to be this way. After Trump’s conviction in the New York hush money case in late May, he briefly surpassed Biden’s campaign in terms of total donors, reversing Democrats' longstanding money advantage. But Harris saw a massive surge in donors after she replaced Biden in mid-July, and since then she has continued to draw new donors far faster than Trump, according to a detailed POLITICO analysis of fundraising data through mid-October. That analysis, based on campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission, encompasses the candidates’ campaigns and joint fundraising committees as well as the online giving platforms ActBlue and WinRed.
Democrats have long had a larger online donor base and more developed fundraising infrastructure than Republicans. In 2020, for example, Biden had more than 2 million more individual donors than Trump did.
But notable is how both campaigns today compare to last cycle: Harris has significantly expanded on Biden's donor numbers, while Trump actually slightly lags his own numbers from four years ago. Today, the Biden-turned-Harris campaign has more than 2.4 times the number of donors as the Trump campaign — a gap of nearly 4.3 million funders.
That gap explains in large part Harris’ massive financial advantage over Trump, which has only grown entering the fall. It also points to her strength in consolidating an energetic Democratic base. Still, donors are only a very small subset of voters, and the implications for next week’s election are far less clear.
HARRIS HAS IMPROVED ON 2020. TRUMP LAGS.
For much of the cycle, Biden had run roughly even with his own 2020 numbers — not catastrophic, but also not especially strong considering this time he was the sole major Democratic candidate.
Harris’ takeover for Biden marked an inflection point for Democratic giving. Through Oct. 16, the most recent data available, the Biden-turned-Harris operation had accumulated more than 7 million donors, up from about 5.3 million that the Biden campaign had at the same stage in 2020.
Trump, on the other hand, did not get a big boost off his opponents’ switch-up, or into the fall. He has continued to bring in new donors at a steady rate, but he has not expanded his donor base since 2020 — instead, he has about 130,000 fewer donors this year across his joint fundraising committees and campaign.
HARRIS HAS GROWN HER ADVANTAGE AS THE ELECTION NEARS
Harris’ sudden momentum was immediately apparent when she took over for Biden, bringing in more than 1.5 million new donors in the first 10 days after the incumbent president dropped out. That alone was enough to reverse Trump’s money advantage.
But Harris has continued to grow her donor advantage substantially since then.
Political donations typically pick up substantially in the fall as people start paying more attention to politics. But Harris benefited from that far more than Trump did: From Sep. 1 through Oct. 16, Harris’ campaign brought in more than 1.5 million new donors, or an average of more than 43,000 per day.
Trump’s campaign, by contrast, brought in a bit shy of 500,000 new donors over that period, or about 13,000 per day.
TRUMP HAS CAPITALIZED BIG ON UNPRECEDENTED EVENTS, BUT NOT ON NORMAL POLITICS
One event drove Trump’s fundraising far more than any other this cycle: his conviction in his New York criminal trial. The former president brought in hundreds of thousands of new donors a day for consecutive days, creating a massive cash flow for his campaign.
Trump’s next-best day for new donor acquisition came on Jul. 14 after he survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, with roughly 35,000 new donors. His appearance on the first day of the Republican National Convention the following day helped sustain the bounce.
But typical presidential politics has not been the big driver of new donations for Trump's campaign. Take the Sept. 10 presidential debate, a major opportunity that put both Harris and Trump in the national spotlight. Both campaigns saw spikes in donations, but the Harris campaign’s jump was more than six times larger, bringing in a whopping 152,000 new donors compared to 22,000 for Trump.
With the vice presidential debate three weeks later, the Harris’ campaign continued to grow its donor advantage — even as Sen. J.D. Vance’s performance drew more praise than that of Gov. Tim Walz. But the Harris campaign brought in 41,000 new donors that day, compared to 16,000 on the Trump side.
About the analysis: The analysis includes donors to Harris’ and Trump’s campaigns and joint fundraising committees, including the Harris Victory Fund and Harris Action Fund along with Trump 47 Committee, Trump National Committee and Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee. Donations through the online fundraising platforms WinRed and ActBlue are also included. Donors who gave less than $200 and did not use WinRed or ActBlue are not included in the analysis, as those donations are not reported to the Federal Election Commission. Donors are identified based on their names and zip codes. Only a donor’s first donation is counted as their date of acquisition. Trump donors from 2020 may be a slight undercount due to WinRed, which reports itemized donations under than $200, not being introduced until June 2019.
This article was originally published in Politico.