The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has poured $15 million into paying off debt from the failed presidential candidacy of former Vice President Kamala Harris.
The organization faces a shortfall after the Harris campaign spent $1.5 billion in her doomed 15 weeks as the Democrat hopeful, Breitbart reported.
Harris was crushed in the 2024 presidential election, and now a record-setting debt has forced the DNC to shell out millions in the first half of the year.
This figure comes as the Republican National Committee (RNC) is working with a cash surplus of $80 million after President Donald Trump’s historic win.
The Democrats are staring down the 2026 midterms with no momentum and depleted coffers, and some in the party have begun the blame game.
Axios national political correspondent Alex Thompson dove into this saga in the news outlet, calling it a “look into the finger-pointing.”
New: Democrats are still paying for Kamala Harris’ loss to Donald Trump last year — literally.
The DNC has paid more than $15 million toward paying off Harris 2024 campaign expenses in the first 6 months of 2025.
My look into the party finger-pointing.https://t.co/Yzu25GpH9Q
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) August 25, 2025
Harris was supremely unlikable and ultimately failed to garner enough support to win the election.
Still, the bills need to be paid, and Democrats are stepping all over themselves to blame each other as to why this is.
Some are now saying that DNC Chairman Ken Martin isn’t adequately fundraising for the party.
Meanwhile, the DNC has permission to use Harris’s email contacts in an effort to raise money and has been sending out requests.
Unfortunately, just like during the election, nobody wants anything to do with Harris, and the DNC has struggled to raise more than a pittance, two sources close to the issue told Thompson.
“The vice president has collaborated closely with the DNC to manage campaign expenses and expand our base of grassroots donors,” Harris’ campaign chairperson Jen O’Malley Dillon said.
“She remains fully committed to strengthening the party and helping return Democrats to power,” added O’Malley, who has remained on to help clean up after the campaign.
Nevertheless, the bills are coming due, and the DNC has been shelling out more than expected after the campaign claimed it was in good financial shape going into Election Day.
“As of Election Day, there were no outstanding debts or bills overdue, and there will be no debt on either the DNC or [the Harris for President committee] report for post general report,” Harris campaign Chief Finance Officer Patrick Stauffer said in late November.
The Harris campaign reportedly expected to be able to fundraise on election night, but the race was called for Trump in the early morning hours after a decisive win.
The bills continued to pour in during the first six months of the year, and the DNC had to pay for expenses such as $2.125 million to Assembly House LLC for media production, $548,050 for charter flights, and another $237,201 to the Covington & Burling law firm.
This isn’t the first time a loser Democrat has left the DNC holding the bag.
Former President Barack Obama’s 2012 victory wasn’t enough to pay the bills, as he left the national Democratic Party organization in serious debt that wasn’t repaid until 2015.
According to a Politico report at the time, Obama remained $2.4 million in debt years into his second term as president.
The DNC struck a deal with Obama to pay the remainder of his debt in September 2015, including handing over his email list, which was thought to be extremely valuable to the Democratic Party given his two victories.
Still, 2016’s losing Democrat candidate, Hillary Clinton, blamed this partly for falling short, stating that the DNC was not prepared for the 2016 election in part because of the debt.
She had the same unlikeability problem as Harris, but she is correct that these funding issues are more common to Democrats than Republicans.
As Axios mentioned, “George W. Bush’s campaign paid off almost all of its debt within months of his reelection in 2004 and had shut down by this point in his second term.”
The problem for Harris and Obama is that celebrities and big crowds don’t come cheap, especially when the excitement has to be made from scratch, as it was for Harris.
Biden appeared to be half dead, and Harris was just a dud, so nothing was going to save the Democrats from losing in 2024.
They threw money at the problem and ended up with nothing to show for it but another four years of Trump and more debt, which is exactly what they deserve.
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