Last month, donors had pledged more than $1 billion to help reelect President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. It’s the fastest any American presidential campaign has ever crossed that mark—thanks in part to an explosion of small donations. Sure, everyday people have always pitched in to support campaigns. And in 2008, Barack Obama’s legion of small donors helped his significantly.

But this July, when Biden dropped out of the race and Harris took his spot as the presumptive Democratic nominee, she raised almost as much in small contributions in a single month as Obama did in his entire 2008 presidential campaign.

What does this development mean for the race—and American democracy beyond it?

Robin Kolodny, a professor of political science at Temple University, researches campaign finance in the U.S. As Kolodny sees it, the rise of small donors is giving campaigns something more valuable than money: commitment—and ultimately, in turn, votes. In the background, however, the whole structure of political fundraising has changed—in a way that’s put presidential nominees at the center of both major parties’ moneymaking machines. Which helps explain Trump’s continuing hold on his party—and Harris’s remarkably fast grip on hers …

• “It might seem natural that wealthy candidates come in with a big advantage. The press tends to pay a lot of attention to them, and they don’t have to spend much time fundraising. But it’s not so simple. Fundraising doesn’t just raise funds; it raises votes. … For each small donor who gave to Harris, she not only got, say, $25; she got someone who’s committed to voting for her come November. She got someone who’s now much more likely to put a lawn sign in front of their house or a sticker on their car, and, just as important, someone who will talk to their neighbor or co-worker about the campaign.”


• “Donors bring commitment. Have you seen these Harris fundraising appeals? She’s asking for $10. Now you might think, Who cares? It’s just $10! But with that $10, she gets your address, your email, and your phone number. That’s gold. Because her campaign can home in on sympathizers. And the best ways to do that are some of the cheapest: emails and text messages. It’s actually more effective than phone calls. Young people don’t pick up the phone, but they’ll read a text.”


• “Fundraising begins much earlier now than it did even recently. But now, they’ll tend to attach fundraising events to other developments—like the announcement of a state-level infrastructure package. This sort of thing rakes in money, not just for the president but for the state and local party organizations, too. It makes the president in effect what Brendan Doherty calls the ‘fundraiser in chief.’ It brings the party together—and unites it behind the current president or nominee.”

Inherent Vice

Meanwhile, the Republican nominee, Donald Trump—whose own running mate, J.D. Vance, has unusually low approval ratings—said, “Historically, the vice president in terms of the election does not have any impact. I mean, virtually no impact.” … Which is it?

The truth appears to be: No one knows. Not even professional historians. As William Hogeland has noted, since Trump’s election in 2016, there’s been a tendency among historians operating as public intellectuals to talk about the future as though it were written in the past—including, recently, to claim, with great conviction, that truly to understand American history is to understand that Biden departing the race this late would doom the Democrats.

Trump may be right that vice presidential nominees often haven’t mattered much. But there’s a reasonable case that in 2008, the Republican presidential nominee that year, John McCain, wasn’t helped by choosing Alaska’s Governor Sarah Palin to join his ticket. Looking to past elections to predict future ones may be less like science and more like counting white swans to prove all swans are white: Even if the VP pick hasn’t mattered in the past, it means little about what will matter now.

—Gustav Jönsson

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