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September 23, 2024 - 6:00pm
Digging into federal data, the New York Times has revealed the scale of Kamala Harris’s financial advantage over Donald Trump in the presidential race. In August, Harris brought in around $361 million in campaign donations, while Trump’s team only mustered $130 million. That gap in fundraising is matched by a disparity in spending: her campaign organisation is much bigger, as is her advertising budget.
Harris’s campaign in some ways is an attempt to bring the model of California progressivism to the national stage. Democrats dominate the Golden State, where Republicans have not won a statewide office in almost two decades. As a result of this overwhelming partisan lean, California Democrats essentially act as the tribune for the state’s unified elite: big labour, high tech, finance, Hollywood, corporate law firms, and identity politics activist groups bargain for power within the framework of the Democratic Party.
One of the principal training grounds for California Democratic power players, San Francisco embodies this alliance of Big Money and progressive activism. It also served as the launchpad for Harris’s own career. Overwhelming fundraising dominance is part of that California legacy. In 2022, Gavin Newsom — another veteran of San Francisco politics — raised almost 10 times as much in his reelection bid as his Republican opponent did.
Whereas Joe Biden was in some respects a bridge to the fading memory of the Great Society coalition, Harris is instead an apt avatar for the new Democratic Party, which is increasingly attuned to the moneyed and educated elite. The explosion of her fundraising testifies to newfound enthusiasm among the progressive base.
Nor is this Democratic financial edge necessarily limited to the presidential race. According to financial numbers from earlier this year, Democratic candidates for open Senate seats in Arizona and Michigan also had an advantage over their Republican opponents. In some congressional battles, even Democratic challengers lead Republican incumbents in the fundraising race. While some dissident billionaires such as Elon Musk are prominent Republican allies, Democrats now seem particularly appealing to the highly engaged professional class who provide many small-dollar donations.
Harris has been able to use this financial advantage to dominate the airwaves and build a turnout machine. Like Biden, she has focused her electoral strategy on making November a referendum on Trump. The fact that Harris is not the incumbent president has been essential for that gambit, but being able to churn out an avalanche of anti-Trump ads obviously helps.
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SubscribeThe Era of Champagne Socialism has begun.
The fat lady hasn’t sung yet.
Reason enough to vote against Harris – say FU to big money.
Good for you, the big money spending on Harris is 3x that of TRUMP. Big money is trying to buy this election. Do you feel like a w***e voting for Harris? You should.
I remain utterly perplexed as to why any thinking person would want to re-create nationally what has transpired in California.
The attraction of California is the climate, and the coast. Everything else is against it.
I think probably if you haven’t lived there, perhaps only visited the nicest sections, and you are in the top 10% income bracket, and live in a nice part of the country, and spend a lot of time online in Neo-progressive echo chambers, it must seem fairly attractive. They have movie stars after all?
I’ve noticed that the number of political ads on my TV here in the USA run about 10:1 for Ms Harris. They are mostly the same, identical moronic ad. So Ms Harris’ ads have become tedious, and allow viewers like me to invent ribald comments, or use the time to go and pee. I assume Ms Harris is investing her huge election fund into a lot of TV time, but not into the creation of intelligent ads. In contrast, the occasional Trump ad seems original and relieves the boredom.
I live in a blue state and have not seen a single Trunp ad. Online, Harris also dominates. To the extent, on youtube, I wonder if Trump is either foolishly not using youtube or if youtube is not selling him good spots?
The MSM controls the ads you see in order to shape your thinking.Try to think independently and evalutate each ad on its merits.
The libs seem to have figured out that first female president is still the one way to maintain their cause. But this time a woman of color this time in the epoch of identity politics.
However, Z touring the US suggests that he is worried about wither a Dem or GOP administration this year. Netanyahu too might be looking to clear out the Lebanese border regions before Biden goes.
The democrats don’t care about polls. They only care about who counts ballots. The interesting thing about the democrat/oligarchy party is to find out how much of their money is actually foreign money laundered through winblue.
Yep. And Repubs do not work hard enough to get enough election workers. Of course the Democrats have the union organization working on their behalf which is huge. But we have to step it up. They own elections as far as the polling places and counting and handling ballots.
Surprise. The Democrats are the party of posturing big money. (Did anyone not know this?)
If you want the US to be like California, thne vote for the Socialist Democratic party. BTW, dd you know that CA had a net loss in population in 2023? That should tell you something. Everything points to the disease of socialism which has never succeeded
Telling, how a massive funding by Democrat PACs has resulted in a slim lead, if any. Hopefully Americans will see through the attempts to buy their votes.