California Is a Piggy Bank for Kamala Harris — and Donald Trump. Here's How They're Trying to Cash In

Within a minute or two, a free Sunday turned into a fundraising frenzy for Dale Schroedel.

Shortly after President Joe Biden withdrew from the race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, Schroedel — a San Francisco Democratic fundraiser for female candidates — was flooded with texts, calls and emails. From her living room, she began contacting donors for Harris for the first time.

“It just was non-stop … 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 U.S. Senate campaign this year. “The day was suddenly gone.”

The feverish fundraising highlights the historical significance of California money in presidential races. For decades, Democrats and Republicans alike have looked to the Golden State’s wealthiest donors. California — boasting ultra-affluent Silicon Valley and star-studded Hollywood — is often the top-giving state.

“When you see candidates making appearances in California, that’s just them making an appearance since they are here raising money,” said Republican consultant Jon Fleischman.

“The term that I prefer to use is performing a ‘cash-ectomy,’ which is really what it is,” he said. “It’s the surgical removal of cash from everybody’s pocket.”

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

But Harris isn’t the only one with California ties.

U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio — former President Donald Trump’s running mate — brings a network of tech executives and crypto investors he built in the nearly five years he spent working in Silicon Valley. The experience is paying off: Vance frequently attends private dinners with tech moguls, many of whom have publicly endorsed the Republican ticket. A Vance fundraiser is set for Monday in Silicon Valley: $15,000 for dinner and a photo, $3,300 just for the meal. On Wednesday, he’s scheduled to collect checks 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 ad time slot” on TV in Atlanta and Philadelphia, said Christian Grose, professor of political science and public policy at the University of Southern California. Those are the biggest TV markets in those two key swing states, which helped put Biden in the White House.

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

At a Hollywood fundraiser earlier this year featuring 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 decline that he penned an opinion piece urging the president to withdraw. “It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F— deal’ Biden of 2010,” Clooney wrote.

The significance of Hollywood donors — and the potential of losing them — “is what was so frightening to the Democrats,” Grose said, because that money could fund campaign staffers and get-out-to-vote efforts in key swing states.

Now, it appears Hollywood is embracing Harris.

That money will add onto Biden’s warchest that Harris inherited. Between Jan. 1, 2023 and June 30, the Democratic presidential campaign account and allied groups had raised almost $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 raised almost $30 million from California. That is more than the $29.4 million raised by Trump’s campaign and 15 other pro-Trump groups combined from California donors who gave more than $200 each.

While California is solidly Democratic in presidential races, it is still a fundraising powerhouse for Republicans since it has more GOP voters than any other state, said Fleischman, who noted that Trump collected more money from California than any other state in 2020.

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

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

‘Shot of adrenaline’

For Harris, California donors will likely be critical, and she may have a better shot at their money than during her 2020 presidential bid.

Harris — then a first-term U.S. senator from California — was struggling to raise the necessary cash to stand out in the crowded Democratic primary field. Half of her bundlers — fundraisers collecting checks on her behalf — were also bundling for her rivals and donating to them as early as a month after Harris launched her campaign.

Within a day after Harris became Biden’s chosen successor, she raised $81 million, almost double the $44 million she raised over the entire 11 months of her earlier campaign.

A Sunday Zoom fundraising call organized by a group called “Win With Black Women” drew more than 44,000 participants and another 50,000 “couldn’t get on” the call, said Schroedel, the Democratic fundraiser. The event raised $1.5 million in three hours, Bloomberg reported.

The momentum behind Harris “defies every stereotype imaginable,” Schroedel said. Historically, Black women running for office have had a hard time mustering enough financial support, she noted.

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

Democrats are now looking to Harris to prevent a second term for Trump, Schroedel added. Harris also holds a bolder stance on abortion rights than Biden, who rarely uttered the term “abortion,” Schroedel said: “She’s willing and able to speak about it in a much deeper and personal, profound way.”

On a Thursday call for Democratic women featuring state Sen. Angelique Ashby, a Sacramento Democrat, participants hailed from Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona. Speakers deemed the November election a fight about advancing reproductive freedom or going backward.

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

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

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

“The party was in a doldrums after that first debate,” Liao said. “(Harris) was just like a shot of adrenaline and energy into the party.”

Harris’ personal relationships could help open doors. Her husband, Doug Emhoff, was an entertainment industry attorney 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 existing relationships, combined with the sort of donors being less excited about Biden, has made her really situated to benefit quite a bit,” Grose said.

Silicon Valley elegy

Personal relationships Vance has cultivated in Silicon Valley have also helped solidify support for Trump among some of California’s wealthiest, even though the area overwhelmingly backed Biden in 2020.

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

“If you’ve got a fellow tech-savvy, venture capitalist who’s now in the race to be the second most powerful person in America and a potential frontrunner for president in four years, that sounds kind of cool,” Fleischman said.

Despite his time in California, Vance is better known for “Hillbilly Elegy,” his best-selling memoir about growing up poor in Ohio. It is that dual background that could help Trump make inroads among Silicon Valley’s economically conservative donors, while also winning working-class votes in midwestern states, said Cathy Abernathy, longtime GOP strategist and an ally to former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

“The tech world and the rust belt are somehow in the same wavelength with someone like Vance,” she said.

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

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

In the past two decades, it was hard raising money for Republicans in the Bay area, where only Democrats got elected, Abernathy said. But the growing public support from some Silicon Valley executives signals the increasing dissatisfaction with Democratic policies on tech, tax and crime, she said.

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

“How much rhetoric do you need to hear that the rich don’t pay enough and we want to raise more taxes?” Fleischman said. “Well, at some point, rich people don’t really like to hear that.”