Vice President Kamala Harris‘s 2024 presidential campaign will end its failed effort to hold the White House for the Democratic Party over $20 million in debt. Federal Election Commission (FEC) data shows the Harris campaign blew through over $1 billion in just 107 days after replacing the 81-year-old incumbent President Joe Biden at the top of the ticket.
All in all, the 2024 presidential race was the most expensive in American history, surpassing both the 2020 and the 2012 elections. In the latter contest, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney raised over $1 billion.
While on paper the Harris campaign’s spending looks comparable to what Democrats have raised in recent presidential contests, the very short time frame in which it was raised and spent is telling. The high burn rate of campaign dollars only to face a resounding electoral defeat in both the popular vote and the Electoral College suggests voters were, by and large, turned off by both the party’s candidate and its message.
This notion is underscored by a study from the Media Research Center (MRC), which shows that Harris enjoyed overwhelmingly positive corporate media coverage compared to her opponent, President-Elect Donald J. Trump. According to MRC’s analysis, 78 percent of corporate media coverage regarding Harris was positive. Meanwhile, Trump received just 15 percent positive coverage—a 63-point Democratic advantage.
