12mo ago

Kamala Harris smashes fundraising record with stunning $81 million haul over 24 hours

apnews.com Kamala Harris smashes fundraising record with stunning $81 million haul over 24 hours

Kamala Harris is smashing fundraising records as the Democratic Party’s donors — big and small — open their wallets for the vice president in the immediate aftermath of President Joe Biden's stunning decision to step aside.

The highest 24-hour fundraising total, surpassing Trump's post-conviction and (likely, given that they refuse to disclose it) post-assassination totals.

888,000 small donors, 500,000 of whom were first-time donors for this campaign cycle.

That's the engagement and energy we should have been having this whole time. That's the kind of engagement and energy that landslides Trump.

15 comments

How does more money mean more votes? Like, where does all this money go? Ads?
- Essentially, yes, though not just literal ads only.
  Ads, hiring local staffers in swing states to canvas, paying for campaign events, etc.
  Name recognition and getting your message and policies into peoples' eyes and ears. Momentum builds momentum, because apathetic voters often need to feel like there are enough other people doing the same thing that they can be part of a winning team, to make taking the time to vote worth it (whether that is a sad reality for politics or not is another discussion).
  
  This is absolutely true. We ran into a friend back into the day who said she was canvassing for Bernie...why don't we also go?
  We nwver even thought about volunteering for a political campaign, yet we did.
- You'd be surprised how much people don't know about stuff. Every time I canvas, whether it's for a prop or a candidate, people just aren't aware. Not that I blame them either, life is hectic.
  So, cold calling or doing door to door to inform people is one of the only really effective ways to actually get results. Which means paying people to do that, or relying on volunteers which just isn't realistic.
  
  How do I get off these god damned call lists without confirming it’s a real number? I’m just flagging it as spam.
- More detail on the topic https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/money-and-elections-a-complicated-love-story/
  How strong is the association between campaign spending and political success? For House seats, more than 90 percent of candidates who spend the most win.
  ...
  Money is certainly strongly associated with political success. But, “I think where you have to change your thinking is that money causes winning,” said Richard Lau, professor of political science at Rutgers. “I think it’s more that winning attracts money.”
  ...
  Instead, he and Lau agreed, the strong raw association between raising the most cash and winning probably has more to do with big donors who can tell (based on polls or knowledge of the district or just gut-feeling woo-woo magic) that one candidate is more likely to win — and then they give that person all their money.
  ...
  Money matters a great deal in elections,” Bonica said. It’s just that, he believes, when scientists go looking for its impacts, they tend to look in the wrong places. If you focus on general elections, he said, your view is going to be obscured by the fact that 80 to 90 percent of congressional races have outcomes that are effectively predetermined by the district’s partisan makeup
  ...
  But in 2017, Bonica published a study that found, unlike in the general election, early fundraising strongly predicted who would win primary races. That matches up with other research suggesting that advertising can have a serious effect on how people vote if the candidate buying the ads is not already well-known and if the election at hand is less predetermined along partisan lines.
  ...
  Another example of where money might matter: Determining who is capable of running for elected office to begin with. Ongoing research from Alexander Fouirnaies, professor of public policy at the University of Chicago, suggests that, as it becomes normal for campaigns to spend higher and higher amounts, fewer people run and more of those who do are independently wealthy. In other words, the arms race of unnecessary campaign spending could help to enshrine power among the well-known and privileged.

Guys, don't give money to political candidates. Every cycle we read about federal legislators loaning their campaigns money at 20% interest (which is legal) and pocketing your hard-earned cash.
Instead, put it in your investments: stocks, bonds, ETF's, whatever.
No matter who we elect they'll fight to keep your investments sound, so at least you get some representation.
- No matter who you elect, they'll fight to rob blind 30-40% of those who didn't vote for them... so better try not to be in that demographic first, invest second.
  
  True.
  One of the first things Biden did was try to change bank regulations so they could target gig workers for taxation more easily.
  These people do not care about you. They do care about the stock market though.

🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles: ::: spoiler Click here to see the summary Hours earlier, Future Forward, the largest super PAC in Democratic politics, announced it had secured $150 million in commitments over the same period from donors who were “previously stalled, uncertain or uncommitted,” a senior adviser said.
Taken together, the fundraising explosion puts Harris in a dominant position to secure the Democratic Party’s formal presidential nomination at next month’s national convention — if not sooner.
The huge haul also ensures that Harris and her allies can compete with Donald Trump, who has generated stunning fundraising totals of his own in recent weeks as he fights to return to the White House following multiple felony convictions and an assassination attempt.
Nobody really knew what was happening,” said Michael Smith, an Los Angeles donor who, along with his partner James Costos, held numerous fundraisers for Biden.
Chad Griffin, a member of the campaign’s national finance committee and a top Democratic fundraiser in the Los Angeles area, said the party is lucky to have Harris “ready to finish the job she and President Biden started together.”
With Biden’s endorsement, Harris’ campaign appears to have inherited his sprawling national infrastructure and tens of millions of dollars that his team previously raised.
Saved 78% of original text. :::

15 comments