Vice President Kamala Harris set a grassroots fundraising record during her first month as the Democratic presidential nominee and had significantly more campaign cash than former President Donald Trump in September and into the final week of the presidential campaign, new federal filings show.
Fundraising by the National Democratic Committee, focused on House races, also soared. The party’s organization working to turn the House Democratic raised more than double the amount of money its Republican organization raised in August. But the party’s House campaign organization, which is trying to protect its slim House majority, reported last month that it had received a six-figure donation from billionaire Elon Musk.
The latest filings with the Federal Election Commission also show several major outside groups stepping up their activity as Democrats ride a wave of donor enthusiasm, while a leading pro-Trump super PAC has launched a wave of major independent spending to help Republicans close the gap.
The numbers show that Harris has completely erased the financial advantage that Trump briefly gained in two of the final three months of the presidential race before President Joe Biden dropped out of the race in late July. Vice President Harris raised nearly $190 million directly for her campaign in August, more than four times the $44.5 million the Trump campaign said had flowed into its main campaign account that same month.
The Harris campaign also vastly outspent the Trump campaign in August, spending about $174 million, with the bulk of that — $135 million — on advertising, as the Democratic nominee raced to introduce herself to voters on a condensed timeline.
By comparison, the Trump campaign spent just $61 million last month, with the bulk of that – more than $47 million – on media buys.
Despite those big spending sprees, Harris’ main campaign account had $235 million in cash as of September, far more than the $135 million the Trump campaign had in its coffers, according to the latest Federal Election Commission records.