Despite outspending President-elect Donald Trump by millions of dollars on the campaign trail, Vice President Kamala Harris was unsuccessful in her bid to stop the former president from re-entering the White House.
The Harris campaign received significantly more funding than Trump’s, outspending the Republican advertising machine by more than 70 percent in the final stretch of the election.
According to data from Open Secrets, Harris received almost $400 million from her 20 largest backers. Trump received over half a billion dollars from his top 20, which included over $100 million from SpaceX, Elon Musk‘s rocket company.
The data, mapped by Newsweek, shows that the majority of the top donors to both candidates for the election cycle were based in California, New York and Washington, D.C. Some 24 of the combined top 20 donors for each candidate were based in one of these three states, with California having the most at nine. The Golden State was home to two of Trump’s largest donors and seven of Harris’.
The largest donor on the list was conservative investor Timothy Mellon, who lives in Wyoming. Mellon gave $150 million to Donald Trump for the 2024 election cycle.
Harris’ largest donation came from the Forward Future USA political action committee (PAC), which sunk over $136 million into her campaign. Harris also received donations from Bloomberg, based in New York, which gave just under $20 million, and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, which donated $6 million.
Seven of the largest donors were based in the U.S. capital, likely due to its close proximity to levers of power such as Congress and the White House, as well as the easy access to lawmakers and other officials that Washington, D.C., provides.
In August, the Federal Election Commission reported that Harris had spent nearly three times more than Trump. The vice president’s campaign spent $174 million that month, compared to $61 million by the Trump campaign.
Despite maintaining similar ratios for the majority of the campaign, Harris lost the election, conceding to Trump on Wednesday. In her speech, the vice president pledged to respect the results of the election, and called on her reporters to do the same.
Newsweek reported in early September that Trump had the upper hand in super PAC fundraising. As of September 4, PACs supporting Trump had raised $305.6 million since the start of 2024, compared to $199.2 million for PACs backing Harris.
Billionaire Musk also sank a significant amount into the Trump campaign, backing the Republican with $130 million of his own cash.
Newsweek contacted both campaigns for comment on this story via email.
