Want to be president of the United States of America? It doesn’t come cheap. The last U.S. presidential election cost some $5.7 billion—more than twice the cost of the 2016 race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Running for the presidency has never been this expensive.
Last month, donors had pledged more than $1 billion to help reelect President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. It’s the fastest any American presidential campaign has ever crossed that mark—thanks in part to an explosion of small donations. Sure, everyday people have always pitched in to support campaigns. And in 2008, Barack Obama’s legion of small donors helped his significantly.
But this July, when Biden dropped out of the race and Harris took his spot as the presumptive Democratic nominee, she raised almost as much in small contributions in a single month as Obama did in his entire 2008 presidential campaign.
What does this development mean for the race—and American democracy beyond it?
Robin Kolodny, a professor of political science at Temple University, researches campaign finance in the U.S. As Kolodny sees it, the rise of small donors is giving campaigns something more valuable than money: commitment—and ultimately, in turn, votes. In the background, however, the whole structure of political fundraising has changed—in a way that's put presidential nominees at the center of both major parties’ moneymaking machines. Which helps explain Trump’s continuing hold on his party—and Harris’s remarkably fast grip on hers …
Gustav Jönsson: What happened to Democratic fundraising after Biden stepped aside in July?
Robin Kolodny: It ended up being a historic moment. Harris raised $81 million within the first 24 hours of Biden pulling out of the race. But that was with the Biden-Harris campaign account already holding about $93 million. The Trump campaign has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, claiming Harris doesn’t have the right to that $93 million because it was raised for Biden. But her name was already on the bank account, too. I doubt the complaint will be successful. But even if it were to be, that resolution would come so far after the election that nobody would care.
So, Harris has raised huge sums—but so has Trump. When he was convicted in New York on charges of having falsified business records, that spurred the donation of a lot of money from his supporters. We’ll only know for sure once the election is over, but the two campaigns seem fairly even in fundraising.
Up until Biden dropped out, many of us assumed that people weren’t donating because they didn’t have enough money—but as it turns out, people will open their wallets for the right candidate. In July, the Harris campaign raised $310 million. Two-thirds came from first-time donors, and 94 percent from people who gave $200 or less. The total is significant—but the distribution, more so.
Up until Biden dropped out, many of us assumed that people weren’t donating because they didn’t have enough money—but as it turns out, people will open their wallets for the right candidate.
Jönsson: Why?
Kolodny: We could look at it this way: It might seem natural that wealthy candidates come in with a big advantage. The press tends to pay a lot of attention to them, and they don't have to spend much time fundraising. But it’s not so simple. Fundraising doesn’t just raise funds; it raises votes. Just look at Michael Bloomberg’s 2020 campaign as an illustration. He’s a billionaire, so he could fund his own campaign—but without all those small donors, he didn’t have that population of advocates out there convincing people that he was worth voting for.
For each small donor who gave to Harris, she not only got, say, $25; she got someone who’s now committed to voting for her come November. She got someone who’s now much more likely to put a lawn sign in front of their house or a sticker on their car, and, just as important, someone who’ll now talk to their neighbor or co-worker about the campaign.
Jönsson: Commitment is contagious.
Kolodny: Exactly. And it’s hugely effective. Donors bring commitment. Have you seen these Harris fundraising appeals? She’s asking for $10. Now you might think, Who cares? It’s just $10! But with that $10, she gets your address, your email, and your phone number. That’s gold. Because her campaign can home in on sympathizers. And the best ways to do that are some of the cheapest: emails and text messages. It’s actually more effective than phone calls. Young people don’t pick up the phone, but they’ll read a text.
Jönsson: It seems the environment is shifting very dynamically. If we look back at the last election cycle, what strikes you most about how fundraising may have changed then in ways that are shaping the election now?
Kolodny: The parties just about perfected the use of joint fundraising committees in 2020.
Jönsson: Joint fundraising committees?
Kolodny: A joint fundraising committee is a way to share the costs of fundraising events between candidates and organizations. It’s a way of spreading money across the many branches of a political party; it’s very efficient; and it’s now a major fundraising vehicle.
Suppose we’re organizing a Harris campaign event here in my city of Philadelphia. We’ll tell donors, Okay, on Tuesday we’re having the photo with Kamala that’s going to cost you $100,000. Then we’ll show them how we’ll divvy up their contributions: You’re going to send this much to the Harris campaign, this much to the Democratic National Committee, this much to the Pennsylvania state party—and so on. It’s a way to say, Don’t worry, you don’t have to follow these complicated fundraising rules. We’ll take care of it for you.
And then we’ll do it again the next day in Minneapolis.
For each small donor who gave to Harris, she not only got $25; she got someone who’s now committed to voting for her come November. She got someone who’s now much more likely to put a lawn sign in front of their house or a sticker on their car, and, just as important, someone who’ll now talk to their neighbor or co-worker about the campaign.
This has changed the way presidents raise money—and even how they travel in America. Fundraising begins much earlier now than it did even recently. It wasn’t long ago that U.S. presidents would only start fundraising in the election year. Now, it’s virtually continuous. But now, they’ll tend to attach fundraising events to other developments—like the announcement of a state-level infrastructure package. This sort of thing rakes in money, not just for the president but for the state and local party organizations, too. It makes the president in effect what Brendan Doherty calls the “fundraiser in chief.” It brings the party together—and unites it behind the current president or nominee.
I would say these joint fundraising committees—connecting state and local parties with the president and other elected officials—help explain why there were so many unity pledges before the Democrats switched from Biden to Harris. At first, they rallied behind Biden; then they rallied to support Harris. And I would say they help explain why the whole transition from Biden to Harris was as fluid as it was. They put the president at the center of the party’s fundraising machine. Everyone has to get on the same page.
Jönsson: What role would you say this dynamic may have played in the rise of Trump?
Kolodny: There's a way in which Trump has responded to a deep demand in his base, and there's a way in which he got very lucky. In 2016, there was a big field of Republican candidates—and no unity in the Republican Party. He wasn't always the consensus pick. In Republican presidential primaries, in most states, if you win the plurality of votes, you get all the delegates. Democrats, though, use proportional representation—meaning, candidates win the same proportion of delegates as they win of the popular vote. Trump wasn’t necessarily winning by impressive numbers—but he was getting the delegates.
Jönsson: What relationship would you see between Trump’s donors in 2016 and the policies he ended up focusing on as president?
Kolodny: You know, there’s never been a lot of policy around Trump. There’s a lot of rhetoric—but not much policy. After Trump assumed the presidency, he signed a number of executive orders, such as the Muslim travel ban. But Biden ended up undoing most of them with his own stroke of the pen—and the courts nixed some others. Just because the president promises, or even signs, something doesn’t mean it will be implemented. Trump promised to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico and have Mexico pay for it. That didn’t happen. He promised to repeal and replace Obamacare. That didn’t happen, either.
Fundraising begins much earlier now than it did even recently. It wasn’t long ago that U.S. presidents would only start fundraising in the election year. Now, it’s virtually continuous.
So in policy, not much changed under Trump. There was a major tax cut, but that was a normal Republican agenda item of the sort the U.S. saw under George W. Bush and other Republican presidents. If Trump didn’t like a government agency, he just wouldn’t appoint anybody to run it. That’s how he tried to kill the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and it worked—for a while. But is that policy? I suppose it is in a way, but not in a way that lasts. With the exception of the tax cut, which has an expiration date, Biden hasn’t really struggled to reverse Trump’s policies, because there hasn’t been much to reverse.
It’s true, businesspeople who want low regulation and low taxes may tend to be Trump supporters—and donors. But there have always been people like that—going back to the Rockefellers and the Carnegies. That’s not unusual.
What is unusual is that now, for example, not every corporate interest opposes green energy. Many of them have already switched to renewables, and that’s the reason why Trump didn’t get much traction when he said, I’m going to bring back coal. Who runs on coal anymore? And who’ll build anything that relies on it? Even the fossil-fuel companies are transitioning to renewables. The Trump campaign is saying, We’re only going to give government support to fossil-fuel companies, not to solar or wind—but that rhetoric isn’t working like it used to. And to be clear, this isn’t because corporate shareholders think, Oh no, we're killing the planet. It’s because they’ve invested in new infrastructure—and it’s starting to turn a profit.
Jönsson: What about Biden? How would you see his donors having shaped his policies?
Kolodny: A lot of businesspeople were pro-Biden—and he’s always been essentially pro-capital. You don’t get elected as the president of the United States if Wall Street hates you. And in Biden's case, a fair amount of leaders in emergent tech industries were behind him. The Biden administration takes the line, Why are we getting all our computer chips made in China? Why can't they be made in the United States? Biden gave these industries huge subsidies. Same with automakers. The Obama-Biden administration helped them out at a tough time.
There are all kinds of policy areas in which it’s made sense politically for big donors to be pro-Biden and for Biden to be pro-business. And there can be a mutual understanding that, for example, sometimes the government does have to help prop up the economy. Other times, it has to step back. There are tradeoffs: If you want your bank to be insured with taxpayer money, you’re going to have to refrain from some risky practices. Not every business concern objects to that.
But remember, Biden had a lot of small donors; now Harris does, too. Twenty years ago, no presidential candidate talked about, say, how to afford college—no one. But now they all talk about it. And that speaks to the emerging power of these new donors.