Harris, Walz Join Campaign Funding Appeals, Say ‘The Fight Is Not Over’

Vice President Kamala Harris thanked her supporters on a virtual call Tuesday and promised that “the fight is not over” in her first remarks since conceding defeat to President-elect Donald Trump ago at three weeks.

“The fight that fueled our campaign, a fight for freedom and opportunity, that did not end on November 5th. A fight for the dignity of all? It didn’t end on November 5,” Harris said. “A fight for the future, a future in which all people receive the promise of America? No. A fight that is about the ideals of our nation, the ideals that reflect the promise of America? This fight is not over.

“This fight is still within us and it burns brightly,” Harris added later. “And I know it’s an uncertain time. I am clear about this. I know you’re light-eyed about this, and it seems heavy. And I just have to remind you: never let anyone take your power. You have the same power as before November 5, you have the same goal, and you have the same ability to engage and inspire. So never let anyone or any circumstance take away your power.

The popular appeal came immediately after Harris had a call with her campaign finance committee. The financial appeal brought together more than 400 donors, according to a close source.

During the popular call, Harris also briefly discussed the historic amount of money that funded her campaign, although she did not address what went wrong as she and her campaign face scrutiny on how they could raise that money and lose so decisively to Trump.

“The result of this election is obviously not what we wanted. That’s not why we work so hard,” Harris said. “But I’m proud of the race we ran. And your role in this has been crucial. What we did in 107 days was unprecedented.

Harris said that in those 100-plus days, his campaign raised $1.4 billion, much of which came from local donors: “Nearly 8 million donors contributed for an average donation of about $56. »

“You gave everything you could to support our campaign. Thanks to your efforts – get this – we raised a historic $1.4 billion, nearly $1.5 billion from grassroots supporters alone, the highest amount in campaign history presidential election,” she declared.

“Getting involved can make a difference, and that remains true. And that’s one of the things that I just want us to remember, please, that our fight for freedom, for opportunity and for the promise of America, has included, for example, almost 4 million new contributors to our campaign because of the work you’ve done, to help people know that they can get involved and that they’re not on the outside, they’re on the inside , that we are all in this together”, she added.

Harris was joined by her former running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, on both calls — a rare appearance by the two, although Harris joined the call from San Francisco and Walz from Minnesota.

Walz, on the call to grassroots donors, also spoke about supporters’ sense of loss after the election and repeated Harris’ assertions that she was not done fighting.

“I think we’ve all seen that possibility, and I know there’s a little sense of loss because we’ve seen what a real leader looks like,” Walz said.

“She delivered the best of our better angels,” he added. “She delivered a vision that we all mattered to. She did it with grace and dignity and continues to do so every day. She is still in this fight. She does it every day. She is not done with her current job, she’s not done being a part of it with all of you.”

Harris and Walz’s remarks follow some post-election analysis from senior Harris campaign officials during an episode of “Pod Save America” ​​that aired Tuesday, including some reactions regarding finances.

Harris campaign chairwoman Jennifer O’Malley Dillon said that during the cycle, most of the campaign’s spending was used to reach “very hard to find voters,” including low-income voters. propensity and young people, while investing in all areas. States because polls showed everyone was in play.

“We were trying to, yes, put more resources into digital…because we’re trying to find young people, we’re trying to find those low-propensity voters who were isolated from politics,” O’ said Malley Dillon. .

“We had some unique things to do in this race and I think it was really critical to do them early and we spent a lot of resources earlier than we should have,” she added, noting that these resources were spent on both advertising and field programming. “We saw, until the very end, that … every state was within such a margin of error that there was nothing telling us we couldn’t play in one of those states.”

During the podcast, O’Malley Dillon and senior campaign advisor David Plouffe accused the Trump campaign of coordinating with its super PACs, a practice that is not legal, but noted that Democrats should take note and do the same.

“We need to stop playing a different game when it comes to super PACs and Republicans. I love our Democratic lawyers. I’m fed up, okay? They coordinate more than us. I think between them, I think with the presidential campaign, like I’m just sick and tired, okay? So we cannot be at a disadvantage,” Plouffe said.

“I think our side was completely inadequate when it came to the ecosystem of Trump and his super PACs and ours,” O’Malley Dillon said.

“We had a super PAC that was helpful and very important and necessary for the work that they were doing because they were the kind of central beneficiaries of a lot of the funding on our side and they put together a strategy and a plan, and we could clearly see it, and we knew what it was [going] spend, but we didn’t have the possibility of having people arrive with us earlier. And so every ounce of advertising, every ounce of implementing these strategic imperatives and defining the vice president and trying to bring down Trump’s numbers, all of that served as our campaign,” O’Malley added. Dillon.

Harris has rarely been seen since she gave her concession speech at Howard University the day after the election. She attended the Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery a week later and was seen making her first return to the White House the following day. The vice president also spent the last week vacationing in Hawaii.

Walz, in the month following the election, stayed almost entirely out of the national spotlight, resuming his duties as governor of Minnesota.

He delivered his final speech of the 2024 campaign cycle on Nov. 8 from suburban Minneapolis, joining a chorus of fellow Democratic governors who said they would protect their states from threats to reproductive freedoms, citizenship and other things under the Trump administration. The former vice-presidential candidate also said he would work to find common ground with much of the population who voted “for the other side” on November 5.

Harris and Walz remained mostly estranged on the campaign trail during the roughly 15 weeks she had him as her running mate. The governor was present at Harris’ concession speech at Howard University the night after the election, but did not speak or interact publicly with her. Before that, the two held a joint gathering on October 28 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, their first event together since late August, when they were seen together in Savannah, Georgia, on a bus tour .

Before that, their last time attending a rally together was in Milwaukee for programming related to the Democratic National Convention in August.