Harris’ cash edge funds advertising blitz as Elon Musk cuts big check to House Republicans, new filings show
Kamala Harris entered September – and the closing weeks of the presidential campaign – with significantly more available campaign cash than Donald Trump, new federal filings show, after setting a grassroots fundraising record during her first full month as the Democratic presidential nominee.
Fundraising by the national Democratic committees focused on the battle for Congress also surged – with the party arm working to turn the US House blue collecting more than double the amount raised by its Republican counterpart in August. The House GOP campaign arm, however, reported a six-figure donation from billionaire Elon Musk last month as the party seeks to defend its razor-thin majority in the chamber.
And with Democrats riding a wave of donor enthusiasm, the latest filings with the Federal Election Commission also showed some key outside groups ramping up their activity, while a leading pro-Trump super PAC unleashed a massive wave of independent expenditures to help Republicans close the gap.
Harris has fully erased the financial edge that Trump momentarily gained over the summer, when the former president outraised President Joe Biden in two of the final three months before Biden withdrew from the race in late July. The vice president took in nearly $190 million directly to her campaign in August – more than quadrupling the $44.5 million that the Trump campaign said flowed to its principal campaign account that month.
The Harris campaign also dramatically outspent the Trump campaign in August, burning through about $174 million. It plowed most of that into advertising – $135 million – as it raced to introduce Democrats’ newly minted nominee to voters on an abbreviated schedule. Some $6.4 million went toward payroll expenses and $4.5 million to text-messaging outreach.
Despite the spending spree, Harris’ main campaign account entered September with $235 million in available cash, far surpassing the $135 million remaining in Trump’s coffers, the latest FEC records show.
The late Friday night filings offer just one snapshot of candidates’ financial strengths.
The Trump and Harris campaigns are aligned with an array of committees that file disclosure reports on a separate schedule. Harris’ broader network announced it had raised a combined total of $361 million in August, nearly triple the $130 million Trump’s operation said it brought in.
Harris’ fundraising dominance has helped give Democrats a significant edge in advertising bookings this fall, including in key battleground states. And the vice president and her allies are overwhelming the former president’s presence on social media. Democrats have spent $137 million across digital platforms since Harris effectively became the party’s standard-bearer in late July – more than triple Republicans’ spending, a CNN analysis of data compiled by the ad-tracking firm AdImpact shows.
