'Could sway the outcome': Trump campaign panicking over Harris’ fundraising edge: report

05 October 2024

With just one month to go before voters head to the polls, the winner of the 2024 presidential election will likely be determined by which candidate has necessary infrastructure to most effectively turn out voters. And Republicans are now worrying that Vice President Kamala Harris has a significant edge over former President Donald Trump in that regard.

The Washington Post reported that there are concerns spreading among the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee (RNC) leadership that Harris' significant fundraising edge could prove difficult to overcome for the former president. Fundraising is necessary for convincing the tens of thousands of remaining undecided voters in the handful of battleground states likely to decide the Electoral College majority. Money can go toward multiple types of critical voter outreach including campaign rallies, TV and digital advertising, field canvassing and direct mail efforts, among others.

According to OpenSecrets data, both Harris and Trump are roughly tied in "outside money" — the term used for super PACs backing each specific candidate. But when looking at money raised by each respective candidate's campaign committee, Harris has more than doubled Trump's haul, raising $685.1 million compared to Trump's $306.7 million.

In the coming weeks, the vice president is expected to exploit her massive fundraising edge by running lengthy infomercial-style campaign programming on broadcast networks in swing states like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, according to the Post. Meanwhile, RNC co-chair Lara Trump has privately worried that her father-in-law isn't spending enough on digital advertising (which includes social media placement and ads on video streaming platforms like YouTube).

The Post's Josh Dawsey, Michael Scherer, Clara Ence-Morse and Theodric Mayer reported that "sources close to Trump" fear that Democrats' fundraising advantage "could sway the outcome" of the election in the most hotly contested battleground states. One key contributor to their pessimism is that the former president is focusing the bulk of the campaign's resources not on critical get-out-the-vote efforts on the ground, but on its "election integrity" program that involves 175,000 volunteer poll-watchers and post-election litigation.

“Across these seven states, the difference will be between 350,000 and 400,000 voters, or so,” said Kevin Madden, who was a senior advisor to Mitt Romney’s unsuccessful 2012 campaign for the White House. “I’d rather have more resources than less when I’m battling trench by trench.”

Earlier this week, Trump's campaign announced it had raised roughly $160 million last month, mostly from donors giving under $200. Harris has not yet published her September fundraising numbers, though she has significantly out-raised her opponent every month since entering the race in late July. In August, for example, the vice president brought in $361 million, dwarfing Trump's $130 million haul.

Harris is investing large sums into field outreach in addition to her record-breaking TV and digital ad buys. According to the Post, the Democratic nominee has 330 field offices across the country boasting over 2,400 staff as of late September. Harris' campaign also contacted more than one million voters in a three-day stretch, and recently held its 100,000th campaign event. The vice president also is planning in increasing her visibility in the final month of the campaign, which includes a high-profile interview with Minutes later in October.

One unnamed senior Harris strategist told the Post that campaign infrastructure is even more important for candidates like Trump, who often depend on high turnout from voters who turn out irregularly in the most important swing states. This could prove difficult particularly in states like Georgia and North Carolina, where Hurricane Helene devastated roads and isolated communities the campaign was hoping to reach in the coming weeks.

“Trump specifically has an electorate that requires a big campaign in some ways. Part of that is because a lot of the people they need to get are sporadic voters,” the strategist said. “They are definitionally harder to reach.”

Click here to read the Post's full report (subscription required).

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