Why a surge of small-dollar donors in Illinois is a big deal for Kamala Harris
A flash of optimism seized University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign student Megan Camacho as soon as Kamala Harris locked down the Democratic nomination on July 21, within hours of President Joe Biden quitting the race.
The 2024 election cycle, with a historic twist of Democrats switching presidential candidates late in the game, sent social media abuzz with groups of many stripes supporting Harris’ campaign, energizing it as soon as it emerged: Black women, Gen Z’ers, Taylor Swift fans, too.
The daughter of immigrants from the Philippines, Camacho “jumped right in” to support Harris, whose parents emigrated from Jamaica and India.
“It made me feel, like, so much more happy and confident in our democracy's future,” says the 20-year-old whose birthday falls on Election Day. “So, just the combination of seeing that and then seeing all of the donations come in, I was like, ‘Wow, this is exciting.' ”
Camacho, a “really broke” junior from Chicago, said she made her first political contribution on July 22.
“I felt OK donating $1 because I knew that millions of people like me were doing the exact same thing,” she says from a study-abroad program in Vienna, Austria, “So even though I had a really small donation, it still kind of counted.”
Megan Camacho, 20, a junior at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and daughter of immigrants from the Philippines, made her first-ever political contribution to Kamala Harris’ campaign. A dollar — what she could spare as a student about to study in Vienna, Austria — would keep her connected to the campaign that excited her.
Provided
Camacho’s donated dollar encapsulates a fundraising trend since the baton passed from Biden to Harris: The number of small donors to Harris in Illinois has soared, mirroring patterns nationally.
Regular folks are handing over $2, $5, $20, often for the first time to a presidential campaign, eager to join a movement boosting the first woman of color at the top of the ticket.
The Chicago Sun-Times analyzed small contributions — defined as $200 and under by the Federal Election Commission — made to Harris’ main presidential committees through ActBlue, a web-based platform that channels small contributions to Democratic campaigns.
The Sun-Times analysis found:
- About 88,000 Illinoisans made more than 150,000 small-dollar contributions to a Harris committee between the end of July and Aug. 31, the most recent available reports.
- The most popular amount? $25, followed by $10 and then $100, all adding up to $7.5 million.
- In Illinois, Biden’s flagging campaign never collected more than about 25,000 small contributions in any single month. Harris’ entry triggered more than 60,000 in late July, and 91,000 in August.
Nationally, Harris also has outpaced Republican former President Donald Trump among grassroots contributors, according to an analysis by Open Secrets.
Harris instantly sparked new excitement among Democrats, who on their own pulled together virtual events to boost her candidacy, generating stunning amounts of cash in small donations.
Hours after Biden dropped out, some 44,000 people joined a Zoom call organized to rally Black women, raising more than $1.5 million.
Then came calls for Black men and white women, raising millions of dollars.
Veteran Chicago-based digital strategist Mike Nellis saw what was happening and wondered, as he put it, “What about the white dudes?
“People are so excited about her as the nominee, we’ve got a level of energy and enthusiasm that we haven’t seen since Obama was the candidate in 2007 and 2008,” says Nellis, a Harris 2020 adviser and one of the creators behind the “White Dudes for Harris” fundraising call. That event collected more than $4 million in a matter of hours.
When Biden endorsed Harris as his replacement, Andrea Buchanan, a Chicago high school teacher, celebrated with her 7-year-old daughter — who screamed. Then the 38-year-old made her first-ever political contribution: $10, plus an order for some Harris sweatshirts.
“I Googled ‘How to give money to the Harris campaign’ and it sent me to ActBlue,” she says. Immigration matters to her as a teacher of Chicago students who worry about Trump’s mass deportation plans. So do "kitchen table" policies like affordable child care.
“I just believe that she’s more empathetic to working women and working moms especially,” she says of Harris. “The idea of voting for a woman is just so important to me. … I might not agree with everything she says. But it’s just time.”
Unlike bigger givers, grassroots donors don’t expect anything in return unless they’re buying campaign merchandise like yard signs or a popular camouflage Harris-Walz cap.
To find and cultivate small donors, Harris-Walz grassroots fundraising director Jessica Porter says they use a variety of social media platforms.
“Quite literally, it’s people giving $1 or $5, or what they can spare. And when they're all giving together, that actually equates to more doors knocked, to more organizers on the ground, and our message shared more widely,” Porter says. “I know $1 can't buy a lot right now, but I think it's the power of people's gifts when they're all giving together that is really making this movement work.”
Contributing: Justin Myers