Nearly a year after the 2024 election, the Democratic National Committee paid $1.6 million last month to cover the massive debt incurred by former Vice President Kamala Harris‘s failed campaign.
The DNC has now paid her campaign more than $20 million, according to Axios. The total payout left the organization with $12 million in cash reserves at the start of October, significantly lower than the Republican National Committee’s $86 million in on-hand cash.
The low amount of cash puts the Democratic Party in a vulnerable position ahead of the 2026 midterm elections following Harris’s loss.
In the meantime, the DNC is focusing its resources on the crucial gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey.
Harris’s 107-day campaign spent $1.5 billion, an unprecedented amount for such a short-lived presidential campaign. She is now touring the nation to promote her new memoir, 107 Days.
It remains unclear whether the DNC has to deliver more payouts, and if so, by how much.
The DNC similarly paid more than $20 million to cover debt for former President Barack Obama‘s reelection bid in 2012. That debt was finally paid off in 2015 before the 2016 election, putting then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in a precarious spot while running against President Donald Trump.
In the days after Harris’s election loss, former DNC official Lindy Li disclosed that the Democratic Party was about $18 or $20 million in debt after the campaign’s “$1 billion disaster.”
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“The truth is this is just an epic disaster,” she told Fox News at the time. “It’s incredible, and I raised millions of that. I have friends I have to be accountable to and explain what happened because I told them it was a margin-of-error race.”
Li said she felt “misled” by Harris for believing she would beat Trump. The former campaign fundraiser for the DNC later joined the Republican Party and frequently talks about the Democratic Party’s downfall.