Notes

Trickles to a flood. This July, the U.S. Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, raised around $310 million in campaign contributions. That’s more than twice what Barack Obama collected in his record-breaking fundraising month in September 2008. What’s more, almost all of Harris’s July contributions came from small donors. Understanding politics means following the money, as they say. So how are these dramatic contributions affecting the current U.S. presidential election? Today, Robin Kolodny talks about the growing importance of these small donors, parties’ increasingly tight control over political fundraising generally, and how together they’re reshaping democracy in America.

—Gustav Jönsson