Harris has a huge cash advantage over Trump, but polls remain tight

Kamala Harris entered the final full month of the presidential election with an enormous financial advantage over Donald Trump, according to new federal campaign finance filings released Sunday.

The Harris campaign and its allied committees raised more than $1 billion in the third quarter, allowing her to significantly outspend the former president’s campaign on television and digital ads, voter contact efforts and staff in the final sprint to Election Day.

The Harris campaign reported raising $221.8 million in September. A pair of celebrity-studded fundraisers in Los Angeles and San Francisco that she attended on the last weekend of the month brought in about $55 million of that total, according to a campaign official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal figures.

Trump’s campaign, by contrast, raised $62.7 million during September, less than a third of the Harris campaign’s total, according to Federal Election Commission filings Sunday. His effort ended the month with $119.7 million in cash on hand to Harris’s $187.5 million.

Harris began building a cash advantage over Trump as soon as she began seeking the nomination in late July, benefiting from a flood of small-dollar donations from Democrats who were excited that she had replaced President Joe Biden at the top of the ticket. She raised $126 million from 1.4 million donors in less than three days after Biden withdrew from the race. And a recent Post analysis of campaign spending showed that Harris is running a campaign that is about three times the size of Trump’s operation.

The vice president’s coordinated campaign raised $1 billion in less than 80 days after she entered the race, according to multiple people familiar with the sum. New reports filed on Tuesday showed that Harris’s primary fundraising vehicle for big-dollar donations, the Harris Victory Fund, brought in a staggering $633 million during the third quarter. That was more than four times as much as the $145 million that the victory fund’s GOP counterpart, the Trump 47 committee, brought in, according to reports filed last week.

Despite that huge spending edge and Harris’s sprawling ground game, her campaign has still struggled to significantly outpace Trump in key swing state polls. The vice president’s campaign has a much larger footprint than Trump’s, which relies on outside groups to help it turn out voters, and her advisers are worried about whether they will have enough money to secure victory. Harris’s advisers believe that the race remains close in all of the key swing states, and point to the high cost of targeting hard-to-reach and infrequent voters in seven very different states.

The Washington Post’s latest polling average shows Harris leading in four of the seven battleground states that are most likely to determine the election — Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Nevada — but only by narrow margins. Trump is leading in Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia, where Harris campaigned on Sunday as part of the Democrats’ “Souls to the Polls” push to get Black voters to cast their ballots early.

Here are some takeaways from Sunday night’s filings with the FEC.

PAC paying Trump’s legal expenses owes more than it has on hand

Save America, the leadership PAC that Trump has used to pay his legal bills and those of some of his associates, raised $1.4 million in September and spent $4 million, most of it on lawyers, demonstrating how the former president’s legal problems have continued to strain campaign resources.

The group had less than $2 million left in cash and owes nearly $5 million in legal debt.

Super PACs take in millions in the final sprint

The Make America Great Again Inc. super PAC — which has spent more than $314 million on ads on Trump’s behalf this cycle, according to the data firm Ad Impact — raised $40.7 million in September and spent almost that much over the period.

MAGA Inc. had $61 million on hand. It has primarily been funded by Timothy Mellon, the reclusive Wyoming-based businessman who is the scion of former treasury secretary and banking tycoon Andrew Mellon. Mellon has given $150 million to the group this cycle, including $25 million last month. Linda McMahon, the co-chair of Trump’s transition team and the chair of the board of the America First Policy Institute, gave another $5 million to MAGA Inc., bringing the total that she has given to the group this cycle to more than $20 million.

Mellon and several other megadonors have dominated the spending landscape for Republicans this cycle. Preserve America, another super PAC running ads on behalf of Trump and against Harris, has been almost single-handedly funded by billionaire philanthropist Miriam Adelson, the wife of the late casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. Miriam Adelson has given at least $100 million to the group. (Preserve America has aired or reserved about $113 million in ads through Election Day, according to Ad Impact).

Future Forward, the Democratic PAC that has dominated the outside spending on ads to boost Harris’s campaign this cycle, took in $104 million in September and had $70.2 million available to spend. FF PAC has outspent the MAGA Inc. super PAC on ads with more than $397 million either spent or reserved through November, according to Ad Impact. FF PAC’s September fundraising included $10 million from Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, $9.9 million from angel investor Chris Larsen, who co-founded cryptocurrency firm Ripple Labs, and $5 million from billionaire Illinois governor JB Pritzker. The Harris-aligned PAC also received more than $40 million from its affiliated nonprofit, which is not required to disclose its donors.

Reports filed last week showed that billionaire Elon Musk, one of the world’s wealthiest people, gave nearly $75 million to a political action committee he helped create. That group, called America PAC, is focused on get-out-the-vote operations in swing states including Pennsylvania, where Musk has been campaigning for the former president. In its most recent filings, America PAC reported that it has spent more than $100 million to boost Trump, with a major focus on canvassing and direct mail.

On Saturday, Musk announced that he will use a lottery to hand out $1 million each day to registered swing-state voters who sign a petition tied to his super PAC’s voter recruitment drive. Legal experts have questioned the legality of the offer, because it ties a monetary reward to voter registration status, which is prohibited under federal law.

Democrats maintain edge in congressional fundraising

The Democratic National Committee raised $98.6 million in September, once again topping the Republican National Committee, which reported taking in $37.8 million last month. The RNC said it had $69.7 million on hand at the end of September compared to the DNC’s $46.5 million.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the National Republican Campaign Committee, which work to aid candidates for the House of Representatives, were more evenly matched. The DCCC reported $49.9 million in cash left at the end of September and the NRCC reported $48.9 million. However, the DCCC outraised the NRCC by over $11 million for the month, taking in $30.3 million to the Republicans’ $18.8 million.

Democrats have held fundraising leads in the race for the House and the Senate for much of this election cycle. Reports filed with the FEC last week showed that in 25 of the 26 most competitive races, the Democratic candidate raised more than their GOP opponent. Democratic House candidates in those 26 battlegrounds spent almost $92 million from July through September — more than twice what their GOP counterparts spent. Republican Senate candidates also trailed their Democratic opponents in fundraising in all 11 of the most competitive races.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee reported raising $30.7 million last month and had $21 million in cash left over at the end of September. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee raised slightly less, bringing in $28 million, but finished the month with $37.4 million cash on hand.

The major super PACs involved in Senate races were fairly evenly matched. The Democrats’ Senate Majority PAC raised $119.1 million in the third quarter, with $108.9 million on hand. The Republicans’ Senate Leadership Fund raised $115.7 million — including $20 million from Citadel CEO Ken Griffin and $10 million from hedge fund manager Paul Singer — with $112.3 million on hand at the end of September, according to last week’s filings.