Harris gives money to Sharpton before friendly interview


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National Action Network

The Harris-Walz campaign channeled around $500,000 to Rev. Al Sharpton’s nonprofit organization, the National Action Network, ahead of the vice president’s cordial interview with the civil rights activist. Kamala Harris’ team made two payments of $250,000 to Sharpton’s group on September 5th and October 1st respectively, as per Federal Election Commission records.

This financial flow occurred within the context of $5.4 million in payments to various black and Latino activist organizations, as the campaign aimed to rally support among minority voters. The Washington Free Beacon first reported on these donations.

The available campaign finance records cover the period until mid-October and do not yet reveal the Harris-Walz team’s spending during the final stretch of the 2024 election cycle.

Harris, aged 60, sat down with Sharpton, 70, for an MSNBC interview that aired on October 20th, just under three weeks after the donations from her campaign to the National Action Network. Sharpton lavished praise on Harris during the sit-down, at one point drawing parallels to Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress who later unsuccessfully ran for the presidency in 1972.

During that interview on his “PoliticsNation” show, Harris also brushed aside Sharpton’s mention of complaints that she was “too progressive.” The outgoing vice president has maintained a friendly rapport with the reverend, dating back decades.

At the start of October, Sharpton played a video of Harris wishing him a happy birthday and hailing him as an “extraordinary leader” and “a voice of truth.”

Sharpton has been a controversial figure for some of his incendiary remarks on race. Back in the early 1990s, he was quoted as describing Jews as “the diamond merchants” and railing against “white interlopers.”

Harris and her campaign were keen on stemming the bleeding among minorities, particularly males. Black men opted for President-elect Donald Trump by about 21%, as did 54% of Latino male voters, per Edison Research exit poll data.

Polls had indicated Harris losing ground with those key groups of voters heading into the November 5th election.

Questions have lingered around the Harris-Walz campaign’s spending of political cash, given that Harris dramatically outspent Trump and lost all seven battleground states to him.

As of October 16th, the Harris-Walz campaign raised about $1 billion and spent around $880 million, according to FEC records. Subsequent reports have suggested that the campaign ended the November 5th election with roughly $20 million in debt.

When combined with outside spending, Harris had over $1.6 billion backing her as of mid-October, according to OpenSecrets. In contrast, the Trump campaign had raised about $382 million and had a total of about $1 billion in combined cash hauled in, per OpenSecrets.

Harris’ campaign war chest grew so large that her team stopped boasting about its figures, ostensibly fearing that it could dissuade donors or give her supporters a false sense of confidence.

Since Harris’ election defeat, it was revealed by the Washington Examiner that her campaign spent $1 million on one of Oprah Winfrey’s production companies and about six figures to create a set for the veep’s interview on the “Call Her Daddy” sex podcast.

Winfrey, 70, has denied she received any money from the payment to her company Harpo Productions.

In addition to Sharpton’s National Action Network, the Harris campaign had allocated $2 million to the National Urban League, $150,000 to the Black Economic Alliance, and $120,000 to Casa in Action, among other minority activist groups.

 

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