Biden raises $26M in 24 hours after Harris VP announcement
WILMINGTON, Del. — Joe Biden raised $ 26 million in the 24 hours after he named Kamala Harris as his running mate, doubling his previous one-day record and signaling enthusiasm among Democrats following the selection of the first Black woman on a major party's presidential ticket.
“It's really palpable, the excitement,” Biden said Wednesday.
The campaign hopes the haul is the beginning of a prolific fundraising push in the final stretch before Election Day. Democrats are close to matching, if not surpassing, the massive $ 300 million cash stockpile President Donald Trump and Republicans reported in July.
Harris is expected to play a key role in that effort. She joined Biden in Delaware on Wednesday for their first fundraiser together as running mates and talked to grassroots donors about how her parents' activism inspired her interest in politics.
“This is a campaign that really fuels my hope because it is about knowing that this is fighting for something and not against something and it's fighting for the best we are as a nation,” Harris said. “It's fighting for the best of who we can be.”
With large in- person events out of the question because of the pandemic, the campaign has an aggressive schedule of online fundraisers planned for Harris. That could play to one of her political strengths and offset an area where Biden has sometimes struggled.
Harris already has a robust network of donors in her native California, a state that has long been referred to as the ATM of the Democratic Party. She can rake in cash from Wall Street. And Harris, who is also of Asian descent, has the potential to bring new money into the Democratic fold because of the historic nature of her candidacy.
“To have someone on the ticket whose mother is from the south of India is a dream come true,” said Swadesh Chatterjee, a businessman from North Carolina who also raises money for political candidates. “You will see more fundraising from the Indian American community.”
Lisa Hernandez Gioia, who was a deputy finance director for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, called Harris a “fundraiser's dream.”
“Donors already have an eagerness,” she said. “She adds the star power that will be like an afternoon shot of espresso to the campaign's fundraising.”
Before it was clear he would win the Democratic nomination, Biden was never a particularly successful fundraiser. As a longtime senator from Delaware, a small, solidly blue state, he never had to cultivate a national network of donors. And party fundraisers have long grumbled that he lacked the same touch with donors that he has shown when working a rope line.