Democrats have poured more than $100m (£77m) in donations into Vice-President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday, her campaign says.
The tally was boosted by what her team calls a record 24-hour period of fundraising - $81m raised.
During that timeframe, more than 888,000 people donated sums of up to $200 each, according to progressive donation platform ActBlue.
Donors who had pulled back their funding over concerns about Mr Biden’s age have said they now intend to resume their support for the party.
The surge in donations in the 24-hour period after Mr Biden quit the race was the single biggest for online contributions to Democrats since 2020, according to the New York Times.
It’s kinda insane to me that any presidential candidate is pulling in 81 million dollars. Why do they possibly need that much money for campaigning? It seems absurd.
America is huge, and the sheer number of media - social media, cable, network TV, streaming, radio, newspaper, magazines, internet, and so on - means that if you want to reach people, a little more money will always reach additional audiences.
From there, it’s just an arm’s race with no upper limit, since each party is desperate to not let the other out-message them.
Perhaps there should be an upper limit.
American campaigns are so long
They needn’t be, and even considering that, I can’t fathom justifying 81 million dollars for a presidential campaign. It’s actually unconscionable to me.
You think that’s too much? That’s a drop in the bucket.
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/most-expensive-election-ever
To be fair kamala’s is relatively short with this late of a start.
Please think of the media owner billionaires enjoying the most privileged and luxurious life that earth has to offer.
They need that money desperately, because it’s not enough for them to win, they require that everyone else be as miserable as they are.
It seems crazy to me too. The limits on spending for election campaigns are far smaller in some other countries, even after adjusting for population size.
Without passing judgment on whether it’s wise or not (though… clearly the current paradigm is not), the legal rationale is that the free speech implications of the US Constitution’s first amendment are extremely broad and permissive, even more so for explicitly political speech, and that money spent on political campaigns is effectively money spent to disseminate political speech. Restrictions therefore are very few, very light, and even where they exist they are very easy to effectively work around while remaining legal.
To add to others, they also have to run field offices in so many places, especially battlegrounds. It’s not just ads, you need locals.
Imagine opening up 50+ offices in each major European nation, staffed with both volunteers and paid folk.
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