Something went wrong with the Kamala Harris campaign

Kamala Harris is many things. first female vice president; First black and Asian woman to run for president. She is a champion in all aspects of fundraising. How did she lose this presidential election?

There is one race that Kamala Harris is certain to win, the campaign fundraising race. In just two and a half months, since Joe Biden announced he was dropping out of the re-election fight, Kamala Harris' campaign has raised a billion dollars.

Fundraising days and evenings vie for tens of millions of dollars: eighty-one million dollars in donations in the first twenty-four hours after launching his campaign in July; Thirty-six million dollars within twenty-four hours of choosing Tim Walz as his partner.

Forty-seven million dollars the day after his triumphant debate against Trump on September 10, followed by several paid parties last month in New York and San Francisco, which brought in twenty-seven and twenty-eight million dollars each.

A BILLION DOLLARS IN EIGHTY DAYS In all, in 2024, Trump and his campaign will take home just over $850 million.

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Money, it is constantly said, is about political warfare. I was in Pennsylvania yesterday, in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. It is easy to see that all this money was used to buy huge billboards along the roads, as well as television messages that relentlessly asserted that “Donald Trump is unfit to lead the United States.”

There is also a famous one Ground gameThese teams go door-to-door and ensure that people are registered in the electoral roll and that they are going to vote on November 5. The Democratic campaign, according to my colleagues who have moved from one swing state to another, dominates the field. Harris teams are bigger, more active and more efficient.

But what do the surveys say? According to Quinnipiac University, Donald Trump has regained the lead and now leads Harris by one point in Pennsylvania, two points in Wisconsin and four points in Michigan. Regardless of the advertising blasts, Donald Trump has a charisma that apparently doesn't require an entire political device to convince his supporters to follow him.

It's so much better… in 2020

More troubling for Harris, she's even trailing Joe Biden in the polls at this time four years ago; Who is Biden – need I remind her? – narrowly won this presidential election.

Taking a combination of polls conducted by 538.com aggregators in 2020 and today, four years ago, we see Joe Biden leading Donald Trump by seven to eight points in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. As of last week, Harris' advantage over Trump in these states was no more than one point.

Money certainly does not guarantee success. Talk to Hillary Clinton, who raised twice as much as Trump in 2016 and lost the presidential election. Closer to Election Day, however, one might expect to see some spillover from Harris' economic success into voters' voting intentions.

Kamala Harris is missing something, but Trump continues to be able to appeal to his voters who transcend traditional criteria, including money. Kamala Harris may have deep pockets, but that's still not enough.