Kamala Harris burned through $20 million on concerts, risking unpaid staff and vendors
Harris's campaign concerts, featuring high-profile artists, reportedly exhausted funds, leaving the campaign in debt and staff unpaid.
Kamala Harris had a spectacular concert eve on the election day on Monday night just before her sore loss to Donald Trump in the presidential race. The VP reportedly blew up $20 million on the concerts and now the staff and vendors fear they will not be paid for their services as the reports of the campaign being in debt emerge.
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Democratic campaign’s concert concept questioned
The defeated campaign’s members revealed to The Post that the concerts had emptied the coffers of the Democratic campaign. This was hinted at earlier as well when they cancelled one performance by ’90s alt-rock goddess Alanis Morissette to save some bucks, as reported by The New York Post.
The concert eve featured performances by artists such as Bon Jovi in Detroit, Christina Aguilera in Las Vegas, Katy Perry in Pittsburgh and Lady Gaga in Philadelphia. For the eighth concert, 2Chainz joined Harris in Atlanta, three days prior to the election day, on November 2.
Two sources revealed that the concerts were Obama campaign alum Stephanie Cutter’s idea and were supported by fellow Obama alum David Plouffe.
One source revealed to the Post that Harris-Walz campaign chairwoman Jen O’Malley Dillon approved the go-out-to-vote concert idea and was criticised internally for it. She did not want to approve it and sit on the idea for weeks before giving it a green signal. Another source emphasised if that was the case then she led the campaign right to increased production costs because “putting [concerts] together last minute makes [them] cost twice as much.”
The second source criticized Dana Rosenzweig, the campaign operations chief, suggesting she should have flagged concerns earlier in the planning process. However, a third source defended her, arguing that the responsibility for managing the campaign budget fell more on the budget team, not Rosenzweig. The second source quipped, “They said they were ‘spending to zero.’ I guess they overshot zero.”
Crisis for staff and vendors working for Harris
An insider concerned about the ruinous effect these concerts will have on the staff that worked for Harris told The Post, “They had huge advance teams for these concerts, like 40-60 people in some cities.” The insider noticed that the staff payments are impacted but the reimbursements are still due, added, “I’m sure vendors will start to get upset soon.”
In the week leading up to Election Day, campaign leaders realized that most of their $1 billion budget had been spent. To cope, they tried to reduce concert expenses, which were projected to cost between $15 million and $20 million but were facing budget overruns. The source said, “They definitely knew the budget crunch at the end because they cut talent from some cities because of cost.”
Another source revealed that the finance team is in the process of filing the balance sheet and no one has been stiffed so far. A different source described the events as “ a real misuse of funds that could have been better spent on ads laying out economic policies” when voters are struggling with inflation.
The source continued, “It didn’t matter to have a bunch of celebrities talking to no one because one, 75 million people already voted and two, people were concerned about their own financial issues, not Oprah telling them America won’t exist.”
According to reports by Politico on Thursday, despite raising a huge amount during the 107-day-long campaign, the Harris campaign ended up at least $20 million in debt. Donation pages are still active, aiming to generate funds post-election to help cover the deficit.