Vice President Kamala Harris held her first campaign event as a presidential candidate in Wisconsin on Tuesday. Yahoo Finance Senior Columnist Rick Newman joins Catalysts to discuss the state of the 2024 presidential race and Harris’s record-breaking fundraising.
“Individual voters are fired up to support Kamala Harris. That the fundraising number, I believe, is now around $126 million raised in small-dollar donations since she became the leading candidate for the Democrats and Biden stepped down,” Newman explains. He notes that the money raised will be used for the campaign to open offices in swing states and hire staff to phone bank, as well as be used for advertising. With President Joe Biden out of the running, the Trump campaign has had to pivot and figure out a new strategy to go after Kamala Harris.
Newman explains that some election forecast models are based on economics in swing states. Therefore, Harris should focus on economic policies like inflation, unemployment, and cost of living when campaigning in swing states. He says, “One of the super most important things she needs to do is boost voters opinion of Democrats’ ability to handle the economy, because it’s still much lower than their their belief in Trump being able to handle the economy pretty well.”
Vice President Kamala Harris held her first campaign event as a presidential candidate in Wisconsin on Tuesday.
She thanked President Biden for his endorsement and touted fundraising efforts so far.
We just had the best 24 hours of grassroots fundraising in presidential campaign history.
But just under a month until the Democratic National Convention and a little over 100 days till the election, What is next for the Harris campaign?
So, obviously, Harris, they’re talking about the breaking fundraising in under 24 hours for a candidate.
But specifically, there was this focus on the number of individual donations.
Talk to me about what that means about the potential voter energy and sentiment around Harris heading to the polls in November.
It tells you that individual voters are fired up to support to support Kamala Harris and that the fundraising number, I believe, is now around $126 million raised in small dollar donations since, uh, since she became the, uh, the leading candidate for the Democrats and Biden stepped down that that money is really important.
I mean, people here, millions of dollars, hill, millions of dollars there, super PACs, Uh, some PE people donating rich people, donating $50 million and stuff like that.
Those small dollar donations go straight to the presidential campaign.
So the campaign itself can use it for all the nuts and bolts of, uh, of getting out and winning votes, That means, um, opening offices in every corner of every swing state.
You can’t really do all of those things that’s used for other things, like running ads.
Um, I think More importantly, it just tells you that she really has generated excitement among Democrats.
She’s up a little bit in the polls.
So, uh, she’s gotten sort of the honeymoon bump you might expect.
That doesn’t mean she’s going to keep it.
Um, this is gonna be a tough race all the way through.
And the Trump campaign, you know, it was planning It was planning to go after Joe Biden.
So they’re retooling their campaign figuring out how to attack Kamala Harris, and they are going to do that for sure.
And Harris campaign needs to focus on because you recently wrote about Yes, there is a lot of excitement surrounding Harris right now and ultimately, a lot of backing.
Clearly, we can see that by the donations.
But inflation and the economy is still going to be a very sticky issue, potentially here for Harris over the next couple of months, right?
And I wrote about some election forecast models that are based on the economics in swing states.
The inflation rate in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin.
She’s going to have the same challenge Biden would have had on inflation, which is how are people going to feel about inflation by the time they decide whom to vote for?
Are they going to still be focused on food prices, for example, that are up like 23 4% since Biden Harris took office and have have risen by a little bit more than incomes.
Or are they going to say, Well, the trend is going in the right direction?
I’m starting to feel good about inflation.
Maybe we will have a Federal Reserve interest rate cut so people will say, Yeah, life is getting a little more affordable.
Um, enthusiasm for Harris will not necessarily overcome swing voters concerns about the economy.
And I mean, there are a bunch of different challenges in terms of which demographic she’s.
She’s strong with which demographic she’s weak with.
But one of the super most important things she needs to do is boost voters’ opinion of democrats’ ability to handle the economy because it’s still much lower than their their belief in Trump being able to handle the economy pretty well.
Over the next several months, we’ll be talking to you again tomorrow.