The Democratic National Committee paid off $1.6 million of Kamala Harris’ debt last month.
It’s the latest payout for the staggering presidential campaign debt Harris’ team left after their landslide defeat in November 2024. The party’s total debt payout now stands at more than $20 million nearly a year after her election loss.
The DNC had only about $12 million in cash on hand by the end of September, according to Axios. The Republican National Committee had $86 million in cash reserves.
Harris spent an unprecedented $1.5 billion during her failed 107-day campaign. Democratic officials are still unsure how much outstanding debt remains from the campaign.
The financial burden has left the Democratic Party in a very vulnerable position ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The DNC is currently focusing resources on gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey.
Harris’ campaign raised over $1 billion and had $118 million in the bank as of October 16, 2024. The campaign quickly burned through their cash and incurred tens of millions in debt during the final week of the election, according to reports from Politico.
The debt includes millions for celebrity appearances by performers including Beyonce, Katy Perry, Lizzo, Eminem, and Megan Thee Stallion.
Former DNC official Lindy Li disclosed after the election that the Democratic Party was about $18 or $20 million in debt following what she called the campaign’s “$1 billion disaster.”
“The truth is this is just an epic disaster,” Li told Fox News in November 2024. “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.”
The New York Times reported in August that Harris made an agreement behind closed doors with DNC leaders that forced the party to pick up Harris’ tab for any outstanding 2024 bills, allowing her to claim she did not end the race in debt. In return, Harris promised to raise money to cover all of those leftover costs.
Small donors who received nearly 100 email solicitations from the Harris operation in 2025 were not told that about 20 cents of every dollar they donated was going to cover outstanding campaign expenses. A February email from Harris told supporters the DNC would put their donations “toward winning the next set of elections.”
Patrick Stauffer, the campaign’s chief financial officer, told reporters in November 2024 that “as of Election Day, there were no outstanding debts or bills overdue, and there will be no debt on either the DNC or [the Harris for President committee] report for post general report.”
Since then, tens of million dollars worth of Harris’ debt has continued rolling in every few months.