Harris raises $200 million in her first week
A week since announcing her bid for president, Vice President Kamala Harris has raised more than $200 million dollars, according to her campaign.
To put that figure in perspective, it's four times what the Biden re-election effort raised in the entire month of April. Former president and Republican nominee Donald Trump's campaign said he raised nearly $112 million in the month of June, Politico reported.
The Harris campaign said 66% of the donations came from first-time donors. Along with fresh dollars, the campaign has signed up over 170,000 new volunteers since president Biden announced he would step down and endorsed her to be the Democratic nominee last Sunday.
That energy is much needed for the vice president who, as of Sunday, has just 100 days until voters hit the polls. This weekend alone, the Harris campaign has scheduled more than 2,000 events in swing states.
"The momentum and energy for Vice President Harris is real – and so are the fundamentals of this race: This election will be very close and decided by a small number of voters in just a few states," the campaign’s communications director, Michael Tyler, wrote in a memo.
The vice president has already secured commitments from enough democratic national convention delegates to lock up the nomination, with elected Democrats and grassroots groups rallying around her.
On Saturday, during a fundraiser in the Berkshires, Harris told supporters that she was the underdog in the race, but was heartened by the overwhelming support she has received. Roughly half of the money raised in the first week came in the first 24 hours after Biden endorsed her. That was a record-breaking pace.
"And since then, in battleground states, people have been flooding our offices around the country to volunteer," she said in Pittsfield, Ma. "This is good. We've got momentum."
One key aspect her campaign remains to be seen: Who Harris will choose to be her running mate? The process for a VP pick would normally take months. But for Harris, her deliberation period can best be measured in days.
One source familiar with her thinking said Harris was looking for a vice president with executive experience and someone who could be a governing partner with her, among other considerations. That source declined to share names of people being vetted.
A second source said Harris' team had not yet narrowed down the field and was vetting about a dozen potential candidates for the job, and also declined to give names of people being vetted.
The sources spoke on condition of anonymity to share information about the private process.
