Deep Blue California Is a Piggy Bank for Kamala Harris — and Donald Trump: How They’re Trying to Cash In

In the span of a minute or two, a free Sunday turned into a fundraising frenzy for Dale Schroedel.

Shortly after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, Schroedel — a Democratic fundraiser for women in San Francisco — was inundated with text messages, calls and emails. She began reaching out to Harris donors for the first time from her living room.

“It just kept going … and I barely remember what happened the rest of the day,” said Schroedel, who raised money for Hillary Clinton’s two presidential bids and Rep. Barbara Lee’s Senate campaign this year. “The day just went by.”

The fundraising frenzy underscores the historic importance of California money in the presidential race. For decades, both Democrats and Republicans have turned to the Golden State’s wealthiest donors. California — home to the ultra-wealthy Silicon Valley and Hollywood’s star power — is often the state’s top moneymaker.

“When you see candidates coming to California, they’re coming because they’re here to raise money,” said Republican consultant Jon Fleischman.

“The term I prefer to use is ‘cash-ectomy,’ which is essentially what it is,” he said. “It’s the surgical removal of cash from everyone’s pockets.”

The wealth is already helping Harris, an Oakland native and California’s favorite daughter who has cultivated decades of personal relationships with some of the nation’s most prolific fundraisers. Some California Democratic megadonors — many of whom have halted their donations to Biden — have pledged hundreds of millions to Harris. In the 24 hours since Biden’s announcement, Harris has raised a historic $81 million nationwide — the most anyone has ever raised during that period in American history — including more than 500,000 first-time donors.

But Harris is not the only person with ties to California.

U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio — a former Trump vice presidential candidate — is bringing a network of tech executives and cryptocurrency investors he built over nearly five years in Silicon Valley. The experience pays off: Vance often attends private dinners with tech moguls, many of whom have publicly endorsed the Republican nomination. Vance has a fundraiser in Silicon Valley on Monday: $15,000 for dinner and a photo op, $3,300 for the meal alone. He plans to pick up the checks Wednesday at Harris Ranch in Coalinga.

“It’s our money”

For decades, California has been a cash cow for Democrats nationwide. In 2020, money from the state helped Democrats book “every bit of commercial time” on television in Atlanta and Philadelphia, said Christian Grose, a professor of political science and public policy at the University of Southern California. Those are the largest television markets in those two key swing states that helped propel Biden to the White House.

But that same fundraising power served as leverage to force Biden out of the 2024 nomination race, Grose said.

At a Hollywood fundraiser earlier this year with Julia Roberts and George Clooney, Biden and former President Barack Obama raised $30 million. But the event left Clooney so concerned about Biden’s mental and physical deterioration that he wrote an op-ed urging the president to withdraw. “This is devastating, but the Joe Biden I was at a fundraiser with three weeks ago was not the ‘big F— deal’ Joe Biden of 2010,” Clooney wrote.

Grose said the importance of Hollywood donors — and the potential loss of them — “was so terrifying to Democrats” because the money could be used to fund campaign staff and get-out-the-vote efforts in key swing states.

It looks like Hollywood is starting to believe in Harris.

The money will add to the Biden coffers that Harris inherited. Between Jan. 1, 2023, and June 30, the Democratic presidential campaign account and allied groups raised nearly $54 million from Californians who each contributed more than $200, according to a CalMatters analysis of campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

The Biden-Harris campaign committee alone has raised nearly $30 million from California. That’s more than the $29.4 million raised by the Trump campaign and 15 other pro-Trump groups combined from California donors who gave more than $200 each.

California is solidly Democratic in the presidential race, Fleischman said, but it’s still a fundraising powerhouse for Republicans because it has more GOP voters than any other state. He also noted that Trump raised more money from California than any other state in 2020.

But the money Trump and Vance raise in California will likely be spent in key swing states, he said.

“Our votes are no longer the commodity that makes California relevant in presidential elections. It’s our money.”

“Adrenaline rush”

California donors will play a key role for Harris, and she may have a better chance of raising money from them than she did during her 2020 presidential campaign.

Harris — then a first-term U.S. senator from California — was struggling to raise the cash she needed to stand out in the crowded Democratic primary field. Half of her fundraisers — the people who collect checks on her behalf — were also fundraising for and donating to her rivals a month into Harris’ campaign.

Just one day after Harris was elected to succeed Biden, she raised $81 million, nearly twice the $44 million she raised in the entire 11 months of her earlier campaign.

A Zoom fundraiser Sunday organized by a group called “Win ​​With Black Women” drew more than 44,000 attendees, with another 50,000 “unable to join” the call, said Schroedel, a Democratic fundraiser. The event raised $1.5 million in three hours, Bloomberg reported.

Harris’ momentum “defies every conceivable stereotype,” Schroedel said. Historically, black women running for office have had difficulty amassing sufficient financial support, she noted.

Schroedel said the timing of Biden’s withdrawal and endorsement helped Harris. Harris quickly consolidated support among party delegates and key Democratic leaders, leaving little room for others to challenge her. “This is the opportunity of the hour,” Schroedel said.

Democrats are now counting on Harris to prevent a second Trump term, Schroedel added. Harris also has taken a bolder stance on abortion rights than Biden, who has rarely used the term “abortion,” Schroedel said: “She’s willing and able to talk about it in a much more profound and personal, profound way.”

At a Thursday call for Democratic women, featuring state Sen. Angelique Ashby, a Sacramento Democrat, participants came from Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona. Speakers cast the November election as a fight to advance reproductive freedom or roll it back.

“I think the scariest thing right now is that men in this race, men on the other side, would like to define us,” Ashby said.

San Francisco activist Kimberly Ellis urged attendees — especially Black women — to volunteer and contribute to races up and down the ballot. “This moment is not just about electing the first female president of the United States of America. This moment is also about taking back Congress, keeping the Senate, flipping those swing districts that we need, and making sure that we’re electing women, women of color, and Black women at the local level,” she said.

The fundraising drive shows excitement about Harris, and memes related to Harris have gone viral on social media platforms, which could resonate with young voters, said Kevin Liao, a Democratic consultant who worked on Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s presidential bid in Massachusetts and then Biden’s 2020 campaign in Nevada.

“The party was in a state of stagnation after the first debate,” Liao said. “(Harris) was like a shot of adrenaline and energy for the party.”

Harris’ personal relationships could help open doors. Her husband, Doug Emhoff, was an entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles for 30 years, and Harris is also friends with some Democratic mega-donors and fundraisers, such as Susie Tompkins Buell and Chrisette Hudlin.

“Her current relationships, coupled with the fact that donors are not as enthusiastic about Biden, put her in a really good position to make a big gain,” Grose said.

Silicon Valley Elegy

The personal relationships Vance built in Silicon Valley also helped solidify Trump’s support among California’s wealthiest residents, even though the region overwhelmingly backed Biden in 2020.

Last month, Vance hosted a fundraiser for Trump in San Francisco and introduced the former president to prominent entrepreneurs — including David Sacks, The New York Times reported. Days later, Sacks hosted Trump at his own $20 million Pacific Heights mansion, raising more than $12 million.

“If you have a tech-savvy buddy who’s a venture capitalist who’s now in the running to become the second most powerful person in America and a potential presidential candidate in four years, that sounds pretty cool,” Fleischman said.

Despite his time in California, Vance is better known for “Hillbilly Elegy,” his bestselling memoir about growing up poor in Ohio. It’s that dual background that could help Trump gain traction with economically conservative donors in Silicon Valley, as well as win working-class votes in Midwestern states, said Cathy Abernathy, a longtime GOP strategist and ally of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

“The tech world and the Rust Belt are somehow on the same wavelength when it comes to someone like Vance,” she said.

Even before Trump chose Vance, some Silicon Valley tycoons were warming to the former president.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, for example, endorsed Trump shortly after the attempted assassination two weeks ago, and his allies helped set up a super PAC to support Trump. Hedge fund executive Bill Ackman, who has largely supported Democrats, also endorsed Trump after the shooting. Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen, who founded venture capital firm A16Z, also support Trump.

It has been difficult to raise money for Republicans in the Bay Area over the past two decades, where only Democrats have been elected, Abernathy said. But the growing public support of some Silicon Valley executives signals growing dissatisfaction with Democratic policies on technology, taxes and crime, she said.

Some executives pointed to the Biden administration’s antitrust lawsuits against Apple and Google, federal investigations into cryptocurrency companies and Biden’s proposal to increase the capital gains tax, the Los Angeles Times reported.

“How much rhetoric does it take to hear that the rich aren’t paying enough and we want to raise more taxes?” Fleischman said. “Well, at some point, rich people don’t like to hear that.”