How did the Bungling Kamala Harris Hooker campaign blow $1 billion?

The Democrat candidate raised — and spent — far more money than Donald 
Trump. But backing from celebrities and social media stars seems to have 
backfired

Where did it all go? Yes, the money. That billion dollars.

It is the question being asked this week as the final figures from 
Kamala Harris’s failed presidential bid come in and the financial post 
mortem begins; strategists and consultants picking over the Democrats’ 
cash-corpse, discussing exactly how it was spent and how they would have 
spent it differently.

The Harris team raised an extraordinary amount in the three months she 
was presidential candidate — a little over $1 billion — and, as they 
should, they spent it. They spent $15 million of it on slick celebrity 
endorsements, over $4 million on influencer marketing and what is 
estimated at hundreds of thousands of dollars to put Harris’s face on 
the Las Vegas Sphere.

But in the end, it wasn’t enough.

Not for the first time, Trump needed less to win more. In the 2016 
campaign, the total Hillary Clinton and Democratic spend was almost 
double that of Donald Trump and the Republicans.

The current Federal Election Commission (FEC) data spans until the end 
of September, so final estimates of what was spent where will vary, but 
according to non-profit research group, OpenSecrets, president-elect 
Trump’s official campaign spent $345 million.


Despite the $1 billion pot, it was reported last week that the Harris 
and Tim Walz campaign finished the race more than $20 million in debt, 
the team still sending chirpy texts from the campaign asking for more cash.

In the coming weeks the FEC will publish the final numbers and a fuller 
picture of total spending — and potential debt — will emerge. It will 
likely be named the most expensive US general election in history. But 
the question will remain: How did Harris outspend her opponent and still 
not manage to outrun him?

Trump’s ground ops
“The campaign which spends the most is not necessarily going to be the 
one that wins,” said Jake Dilemani, a Democratic strategist at Mercury 
Public Affairs. But that’s not to say that it doesn’t make a difference, 
he continued, with Harris having to work harder to introduce herself to 
the electorate in a short period of time. In August, her campaign spent 
an average of $7.5 million a day, compared to Trump’s $2.7 million.

The total spend — which includes the official campaign money as well as 
allied groups which operate independently, such as political action 
committees (PACs) and super PACs — shows the figures are a little less 
stark, the Democrats on $1.5 billion and the Republicans on $1 billion, 
according to OpenSecrets. The Harris campaign was generally less willing 
to farm out its operations to outside groups, the Trump team being much 
more reliant on them.

This difference in strategy was particularly visible in ground 
operations — canvassing and door-knocking — which the Democrats chose to 
keep in-house, operating an enormous, centralised machine. The 
Republicans ran a much leaner internal operation, instead using a more 
chaotic, sprawling external structure, Elon Musk’s America PAC taking 
over the bulk of the voter turnout operation and Turning Point PAC 
mobilising young people. The Harris campaign had 1,200 staffers, 
spending $56.6 million on payroll, compared to 320 for Trump, who spent 
$9 million.


Diminishing returns
Zooming in on the official campaign money, the largest portion of the 
Harris spend went on media — television, radio, billboards and newspaper 
advertising — totalling $690 million, according to John Hopkins 
University. This included displaying her face across the Las Vegas 
Sphere, understood to cost $450,000 a day, her ad being displayed 
intermittently from October 29 until election day. The official Trump 
campaign spent less than a quarter of that on paid-for media.


“You can hit a point of diminishing returns with ads,” said Ian 
Vandewalker, head of the Brennan Centre for Justice’s elections and 
government program. “If someone sees their million and first advert, 
it’s not going to change their mind … But it becomes an arms race. 
Whether having more weapons helps you win or not, neither side wants to 
take the risk.”

Harris ads tended to focus on reproductive rights, Trump’s criminal 
convictions and democracy. There was also a Democratic super PAC called 
Future Forward, which acted as an ad testing factory, spending over $500 
million analysing the most effective messaging.

But there is such a thing as too much analysis, said political scientist 
David Nickerson. “Testing ads to advance your chosen narrative lane is 
helpful,” he said, but if the testing leads to nine different 
narratives, “that can be counteractive”.

One advert put out by the Harris campaign voiced by Julia Roberts which 
shows a woman voting for Harris but keeping it from her husband was 
criticised as patronising and missing the mark.

Trump’s adverts generally focused on Biden-Harris’s ailing economy, 
migration and transgender rights, the line with the most sticking power 
being, according to super PAC, Future Forward: “Kamala is for they/them. 
I am for you.” It was a simple, often-repeated catchphrase, which 
allowed the Republicans to fully occupy a debate that the Democrats were 
too afraid to go near.

Jimmy Keady, a former Republican staffer in the House and now a 
strategist, said: “Trump was very strategic on spending money on talking 
about the issues people cared about. It doesn’t matter how much money 
you spend if your message isn’t right. Kamala missed the mark.”

The president-elect was also able to garner enormous “earned media” — 
free publicity — appearing behind the drive-thru till at a McDonald’s or 
getting into a garbage truck. “In that, Trump is the master,” continued 
Keady.

Lack of influence
The next biggest expenditure by the Harris official campaign was on 
digital — online advertising and data analytics — spending $31.4 million 
compared to Trump’s $10.1 million. More specifically, Harris spent $12.2 
million on Facebook and Instagram versus Trump’s $611,228. (Again, 
outside campaigns spent far more in both cases.)

The Harris team focused much of their cash on influencer marketing, 
paying Village Marketing Agency $3.9 million, essentially for access to 
a database of around 15,000 social media influencers who they gave 
exclusive passes to events, where they made content. The influencers 
featured on the “Creators for Kamala” feed included Jocelyn Danielle, 
who posts about TV and film to her 25,000 Instagram followers, and Deja 
Foxx, an online activist with 57,000 followers. Others knocked on doors 
or made canvassing calls from campaign hubs.

The campaign also contracted People First to engage influencers, who 
created videos for the campaign to use. “We call it a casting process,” 
said Ryan Davis, the co-founder who oversees People First’s political 
projects. “The campaign came to us with their own demographics and very 
specific types, which leaned heavily female, and asked for very specific 
talking points — for Latinos, black voters, students and Asian voters.”

The price of fame
According to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, Harris also far 
outspent Trump on admin costs, which includes rallies and concerts: 
$90.3 million to $16.4 million. The Harris campaign spent $15 million on 
“event production” — facilitating appearances by Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, 
Bruce Springsteen, Katy Perry and Jennifer Lopez — as well as a town 
hall event with Oprah Winfrey in a studio in September in the swing 
state of Michigan. Winfrey’s company, Harpo Productions, received $1 
million, though Winfrey has said she was “paid nothing” and did not 
receive a personal fee, the money was for production costs only.

“I am highly sceptical of celebrity endorsements,” said Louis Perron, a 
political consultant and the author of Beat the Incumbent: Proven 
Strategies and Tactics to Win Elections. “Their capacity to deliver 
votes is limited because they don’t have political clout.”

The Democrats’ events were also sophisticated and glitzy productions 
compared to some of Trump’s cheaper-feeling outdoor rallies. “That is 
not money that is particularly well-invested, because in the end it’s 
about the message, not about the special effects,” said Peron.

The bottom line
In mid-October, the Harris campaign had over $270 million in the bank, 
but last week Politico reported that it finished tens of millions in 
debt. The true picture will not be clear until later in the month. “Hi 
Team, It’s Kamala, The election isn’t what we wanted, but I will never 
give up the fight,” said a recent text message, appealing for more 
donations. “There are still a number of critical races across the 
country that are either too close to call, or within the margin of 
recounts or certain legal challenges.”

Shanna Ports, senior legal counsel with the Campaign Legal Centre, said 
campaigns are obligated to pay off debt. “There are people who wait to 
contribute to campaigns until after the election,” she said. “They will 
give money to the winning candidate to help pay back the debt. But if 
you lose, a lot of the donor pool dries up.”

Adam Sheingate, a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins 
University, believes that after final accounting, the total spend 
between both parties in the presidential race will come in at around $17 
billion, and believes the Democrats will have spent “way more” than the 
Republicans.

Where Trump seems to operate “as a campaigner”, finding his message on 
stage at rallies, the Democrats seem to be more “wonky”, just “wanting 
to turn to data”, says Sheingate.

“We have developed such a sophisticated apparatus to understand people’s 
behaviour and habits, but we still don’t know how people are going to 
vote on election day. And so what comes next? Campaigns spend even more 
trying to find out.”

https://www.thetimes.com/world/us-world/article/kamala-harris-campaign-spend-democrats-election-2024-p6wppv7fx