Harris is spending — and raising — way more than Trump

Kamala Harris’ campaign spent nearly three times as much as Donald Trump’s did in August — but raised so much that she still grew her cash advantage.

The massive spending disparity came even as the Trump campaign continued to scale up its expenses, which more than doubled from the month prior, according to a POLITICO analysis of campaign finance filings submitted to the Federal Election Commission late Friday. But the continued divergence highlights the Harris campaign’s significant money and infrastructure advantage as the election approaches: Harris has far more campaign cash available than Trump, and she has greater means to deploy it.

Harris entered August with more money than Trump, and managed to raise more than she spent over the month. Trump’s campaign, by contrast, spent more than it raised despite far fewer expenses. Her campaign reported taking in $190 million; his, just shy of $45 million.

The vice president’s campaign outspent Trump $174 million to $61 million in August. But Harris’ preexisting cash advantage and superior fundraising mean that she ended the month with $235 million, $100 million more than Trump.

Direct campaign money is only one part of the broader political ecosystem, and Trump is getting substantial outside support from the Republican Party and super PACs that are doing both traditional ad buys and canvassing. But campaign money has several advantages. It is directly controlled by the candidates and their closest advisers, and campaigns get better TV ad rates than outside groups do — important as paid media is now the biggest expense category by far for both Trump and Harris.

For the Harris campaign, media production and ad buys accounted for $137 million of the campaign’s $174 million spending in August.

The next largest spending categories for the Harris campaign included $6.7 million on air travel, $6.4 million on payroll and $4.5 million on text message outreach.

For Trump, paid media accounted for $47 million of $61 million in August expenses, with another $10.1 million going toward direct mail and just $4.5 million in spending across all other expense categories.

The Harris campaign and the Democratic National Committee had a combined more than 1,200 staffers on payroll, compared to about 320 for the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee.

The Democratic campaign has significantly outraised and outspent Trump’s operation since Harris took over. The vice president quickly reversed the financial disadvantage that Democrats had faced with President Joe Biden at the top of the ticket, and remains in a better financial position as the election approaches.

A silver lining for Republicans might be the cash available to the RNC, which reported $40 million raised and $60 million spent over the month, with $79 million cash on hand at the end of the month. That total exceeded cash on hand for the DNC, which reported both raising ($69 million) and spending ($84 million) more money than the RNC, leaving it with $50 million in the bank. The party totals do not include cash still in joint fundraising committees, most of which will make its way to them.

The DNC’s largest spending category was canvassing, accounting for $10 million spent. The RNC’s largest expense type in August was postage and mail production, accounting for $4.6 million.

Trump is also relying heavily on outside groups, including for campaign activities that most campaigns have traditionally conducted in-house, such as canvassing.

He benefited from more outside spending on his behalf in August than Harris did — $163 million to $104 million, according to FEC independent expenditure filings.

One pro-Trump super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., reported $25 million newly raised in August, including $10 million from Wisconsin billionaire Diane Hendricks and $5 million from Paul Singer, a major GOP donor who was once critical of Trump. Several other groups that reported major spending on Trump’s behalf in August, including the Elon Musk-linked America PAC, don’t report their donors until October.

Two pro-Harris super PACs, FF PAC and American Bridge, respectively reported $36 million and $21 million raised in August. Much of that money came funneled through nonprofits, so the actual donors behind that money are not known. The largest individual donations to the groups included $3 million from Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz to FF PAC and $2.5 million from longtime Democratic donor Deborah Simon to American Bridge.