Kamala Harris pushes donors for more after raising US$1B+ in electoral defeat

globalnews.ca:

Democratic Party’s prodigious fundraising operation raised more than $1 billion in her loss to Donald Trump, but the vice president is still pushing donors for more money after the election.Democrats are sending persistent appeals to Harris supporters without expressly asking them to cover any potential debts, enticing would-be donors instead with other matters: the Republican president-elect’s picks for his upcoming administration and a handful of pending congressional contests where ballots are still being tallied.“The Harris campaign certainly spent more than they raised and is now busy trying to fundraise,” said Adrian Hemond, a Democratic strategist from Michigan. He said he was been asked by the campaign after its loss to Trump to help with fundraising.The party is flooding Harris’ lucrative email donor list with near-daily appeals aimed at small-dollar donors — those whose contributions are measured in the hundreds of dollars or less.

But Hemond said the postelection effort also includes individual calls to larger donors.The scramble now underscores the expense involved in a losing effort and the immediate challenges facing Democrats as they try to maintain a baseline political operation to counter the Trump administration and prepare for the 2026 midterm elections. It also calls into question how Democrats used their resources, including hosting events with musicians and other celebrities as well as running ads in a variety of nontraditional spaces such as Las Vegas’ domed Sphere.Internally, the apparent cash crunch is being blamed for the campaign’s decision to stop paying many senior staff as of Saturday, even those initially told they would be paid through the end of the year.