Kamala Harrris raised $2 million for her 2020 campaign in the 24 hours after sharing a personal story about bussing during the Democratic primary debates on Thursday.
The California senator achieved her best fundraising day yet with 63,277 people donating a combined total of more than $2 million – the average contribution was $30. Included in the contribution list were nearly 37,000 new donors.
Communications director for Harris, Lily Adams, said the campaign has a lot of ‘momentum,’ following the debate.
‘After her dominant debate performance, where she proved she is the candidate best suited to prosecute the case against four more years of Donald Trump, supporters across this country are fueling our campaign because they saw her empathy, her passion, and her direct focus on the issues that keep people up at night,’ Adams said in a Saturday statement.
Senator Kamala Harris’s campaign brought in more than $2 million in the 24 hours after the Democratic primary debates Thursday night
On the debate stage, Harris got in a heated exchange with Joe Biden regarding past anti-bussing sentiments and his defense of his relationship with segregationist lawmakers
The day before the debate, Harris’s campaign posted a photo of her as a young girl, tweeting about how she was a product of bussing
‘After her dominant debate performance, where she proved she is the candidate best suited to prosecute the case against four more years of Donald Trump, supporters across this country are fueling our campaign because they saw her empathy, her passion, and her direct focus on the issues that keep people up at night,’ Adams said in a Saturday statement.
Harris appeared on stage in Miami, Florida on the second night of the two-part debate event – the first of 2020 Democratic primary – and took on front-runner Joe Biden in a heated exchange regarding race issues.
The viral exchange helped bring in quadruple the campaign contributions Harris already received in the first four early states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.
Harris was the only black candidate of the 10 that appeared on stage Thursday night, the only other black person running in the primary race is New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, who took the stage Wednesday night with a group that was largely viewed as the B team.
Harris directly called out Biden for praising his work with segregationist lawmakers decades ago and for opposing legislation that would expand bussing on a federal level.
The 54-year-old senator talked about her personal experience with bussing, sharing that she was the second class to integrate at public schools where she grew up in California.
‘It was hurtful, to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country,’ Harris confronted the former vice president on stage.
Biden didn’t back down, claiming that his stance on bussing was a “mischaracterization” and claiming he comments about pro-segregationist lawmakers was taken out of context
Sen. Cory Booker said Biden should have owned up to his past mistakes and say the former VP isn’t up to the task to take on race issues in the America
‘And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing,’ she continued. ‘And, you know, there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day. And that little girl was me.
Her campaign shared an elementary school image of Harris on the night of the debate.
Biden said that claiming he was against bussing was a ‘mischaracterization’ of his stances and that his comments regarding segregationist lawmakers James Eastland and Herman E. Talmadge were misconstrued.
Booker said that Biden should have owned up to his past mistakes instead of making it worse by going on the defensive.
‘What we’ve seen from the vice president over the last month is an inability to talk candidly about the mistakes he made,’ Booker said on Sunday.
‘And this is a bad culture where you can’t admit mistakes, where you can’t speak to your vulnerabilities and your imperfections – we’ve all had them,’ he continued, adding that Biden was not the right candidate to address race issues in America.