Harris’ fundraising goes down ballot and shifts House/Senate campaigns

Down-ballot Democrats are seeing major fundraising hauls, the party’s fundraisers said. As of Monday morning, Kamala Harris’ nascent campaign said it had raised just shy of $50 million in the wake of President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the presidential race and endorse the vice president. Total online fundraising on ActBlue hit $70 million, suggesting in the ballpark of $20 million was raised for down-ballot Democrats and other groups. (For comparison, ActBlue processed roughly $7 million total donations on Saturday, the day before Biden dropped out.) The flood of money — which continued Monday — shows down-ballot races cashing in on the tectonic shift in Democratic politics. And it comes after weeks of turmoil in which Democrats worried that Biden was barreling toward a major loss in November that could also drag down their attempts to hold the Senate and win the House. Democratic fundraisers interviewed by POLITICO said the fundraising hauls underscored a widespread feeling that Democrats’ fates may now finally be shifting. "We're seeing House, Senate campaigns and PACs having some of their best fundraising days of the cycle," said Kenneth Pennington, a partner at the Democratic fundraising firm Middle Seat. “The decision by the president is a spark for a lot of grassroots donors … you're just seeing people respond to that with, kind of, renewed hope and optimism.”

A spokesperson for MoveOn, the progressive advocacy group, said it was the strongest fundraising day since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. Activist David Hogg said his organization, Leaders We Deserve, raised more than $50,000 on Sunday, its best day of the quarter so-far in small-dollar fundraising and among the group's best days of small-dollar fundraising since its launch last year. Mike Nellis, founder of the Democratic digital firm Authentic, said that beyond a select few races, Democratic candidates have been struggling with fundraising amid “a low-energy election.” But his firm’s major, active clients — in House and Senate races — saw an 800 percent increase on average in their daily online donations in the immediate aftermath of the news of Biden’s decision to drop out of the race. He compared the success of the moment to fundraising in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 and former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death in 2020. “This trickled down to everybody, which I think signals a wave of Democratic enthusiasm,” said Nellis, who has served as a Harris adviser, including in her 2020 campaign. “I think Republicans are about to have to deal with a very energized blue wave that’s coming at them hard. And we’ve been taking it on the chin for the last three weeks, and I think Democrats are sick and tired.”