DNC agreed to select up the tab for greater than $20M of Kamala Harris marketing campaign debt in ‘handshake deal’: report
Former Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democratic Nationwide Committee (DNC) made a “handshake deal” after her large defeat within the 2024 presidential election, which noticed the occasion cowl all of her excellent marketing campaign payments, based on a report.
Below the phrases of the non-public settlement, the cash-strapped DNC paid off about $20.5 million in money owed owed by the Harris marketing campaign in trade for the failed Democratic presidential nominee’s pledge to boost cash for the Democratic Celebration to make the entity “entire financially,” the New York Instances reported on Monday.
Federal Election Fee information present a number of six-figure sums the DNC has doled out to pollsters, printers, consultants, constitution airways and quite a few occasion manufacturing firms, on behalf of Harris, for the reason that presidential election.
One occasion manufacturing firm, Freeman, has obtained 9 separate funds from the DNC since final December, totaling about $3.5 million.
The Harris marketing campaign placed on a number of star-studded concert events within the days main as much as Election Day, and spent an eye-popping $1.5 billion in the course of the former vice chairman’s 15-week run, solely to lose all the favored vote, the Electoral School and all seven swing states to President Trump.
In June, the DNC had touted elevating “a document $40 million” within the first 4 months of Chairman Ken Martin’s tenure, a determine “greater than every other chair in that timeframe.”
Nonetheless, the committee went into 2025 with $22.1 million available and ended July with solely $13.9 million, largely because of the deal to repay Harris’ money owed, FEC information present.
Harris’ cope with the DNC was not disclosed to the previous VP’s donors, and she or he has continued to solicit funds from her community of supporters with the said objective that the cash could be going towards future election cycles – when it’s really going to settle her previous payments.
“They are going to put your donation to work instantly towards successful the following set of elections,” Harris wrote in a single February electronic mail to supporters, based on the New York Instances.
The outlet reported that the DNC is sustaining “a ledger” to maintain observe of how a lot Harris is elevating in comparison with what payments of hers the occasion has paid off.
The latest Harris marketing campaign expense the DNC has footed the invoice for was to Howard College, within the quantity of $498,287.30.
The traditionally black school, the place Harris went to undergrad, can be the place the previous vice chairman made her concession speech.
The DNC didn’t reply to The Submit’s request for remark.
