Harris-Trump showdown: GOP chair vows ‘we absolutely have the resources’ to win in November
Former President Trump’s 2024 campaign and the Republican National Committee are facing a fundraising deficit to Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
But RNC chair Michael Whatley vows that the Trump campaign and the GOP’s national committee “absolutely have the resources” to win in November.
Harris’ campaign, touting an “historic, 24-hour haul,” this week showcased their fundraising prowess in the immediate aftermath of the first and potentially only debate between the vice president and Trump.
The money raked in by the Harris campaign was the latest sign of the vice president’s surge in fundraising in the nearly two months since she replaced President Biden atop the Democrats’ 2024 national ticket.
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Vice President Kamala Harris, right, and former President Donald Trump during their presidential debate, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (Doug Mills/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Word of the post-debate fundraising comes a week after the Harris campaign announced that they hauled in $361 million in August, nearly triple the $130 million raised by the Trump campaign.
Asked about the fundraising, Whatley in a Fox News Digital interview Tuesday at the presidential debate in Philadelphia, responded that “the Democrats have a ton of money. The Democrats always have a ton of money.”
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But he emphasized that “we absolutely have the resources that we need to get our message out to all the voters that we’re talking to and feel very comfortable that we’re going to be able to see this campaign through and we’re going to win on November 5.”
Longtime Republican strategist and communicator Ryan Williams noted that in the 2016 presidential election, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton “vastly out raised Donald Trump and it didn’t make a difference. He was able to essentially commandeer free media and push his message without having to spend a lot of money on TV ads.”
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at the Linda Ronstadt Music Hall on Thursday, in Tucson, Arizona. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
“People have an opinion about Donald Trump. You can run tens of millions of dollars in negative ads against him but the cake’s kind of already baked in terms of his public perception,” added Williams, a veteran on multiple GOP presidential campaigns. “Harris is less known and less defined. I think the Trump campaign will have adequate resources to define her.”
The Harris campaign highlights that it is investing much of its fundraising dollars into its grassroots outreach and get-out-the vote efforts, noting that it’s “putting its resources to reach the voters who will decide the election.”
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The large ground game operation, originally constructed when Biden was the nominee, according to the campaign, includes over 312 offices and more than 2,000 staff in the key battlegrounds coordinated between the presidential campaign, the DNC, and state Democratic parties.
In a straight Harris campaign and the DNC comparison to the Trump campaign and the RNC, the Democrats enjoy a sizable ground game advantage. But Trump is relying on a handful of aligned outside groups to help run turnout operations that are traditionally performed by a presidential campaign.
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at Bojangles Coliseum, in Charlotte, N.C., Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Whatley took issue with the suggestion that the Democrats enjoyed a stronger get-out-the-vote operation.
“No, they don’t have a stronger ground game. I feel very, very comfortable about the ground game we’re putting in place through Trump Force 47,” the RNC chair told Fox News Digital.
Williams emphasized that “the ground game will be critical given how tight the margins are in the key battleground states and could tip the balance of the election.”
“In this race, where each critical race seems to be within a point, the ground game can make a difference, and you need resources, and you need organization to run an effective ground game, to identify persuadable voters and turn them out,” he added. “Democrats will have a very formidable operation and in many states will try to bank votes early.”
