Campaigners say Harris received $20,000 per minute during fundraising effort

Harris campaign targets women voters as Trump’s running mate is on the backfoot over past comments

At one point on Thursday, the Kamala Harris campaign was raising $20,000 per minute, campaigners have said.

The campaign for the vice president was hosting a Zoom call for white women to “answer the call” and “show up for Kamala Harris.”

“We’re raising $20,000 per minute — the system wasn’t built for this. If you can’t make your donation, keep trying,” Shannon Watts, founder of the anti-gun violence group Mom Demands Action, wrote on X on Thursday morning.

Watts added that there were more than 100,000 participants and that at least $2m was raised during the fundraising effort.

The Harris campaign expected to bring in another $1.4m during a fundraiser in Pittsfield, Massachusetts on Saturday. The event, with about 800 attendees at the Colonial Theatre, was the largest event held in the Berkshires since then-First Lady Michelle Obama visited in 2012.

Her remarks at the fundraiser lasted roughly 18 minutes.

Describing her past as a prosecutor, she said: “In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type.”

Vice President Kamala Harris delivers remarks at a campaign event in Pittsfield, Mass., Saturday, July 27, 2024 (AP)

The Harris campaign is targeting women voters, a group former President Donald Trump has struggled with in past elections. In 2016, Trump won 39 per cent of women, losing the group by 15 points to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In 2020, he garnered 44 per cent of the women’s vote, losing by 11 points to President Joe Biden, Newsweek noted.

According to a New York Times/Siena College poll conducted between July 22 and 24, Harris leads Trump among women by 14 points – 55 to 41 per cent.

This comes as Trump’s running mate Ohio Senator JD Vance is facing increasing scrutiny for his past comments about women.

While Vance has been commended as an adept speaker and media performer for the Maga movement, Democrats think his conservative views on abortion and cutting rhetoric about women will push away swing voters, particularly with someone like Harris leading the charge against the Republicans.

During an appearance on Fox News in July 2021, Vance criticized those he called “childless cat ladies” on the left with no “stake” in the future of the country. He pointed to Harris as being one of them despite her having two stepchildren.

In a statement to Newsweek, spokesperson Taylor Van Kirk said: “Once again, the left-wing media have twisted Senator Vance’s words and spun up a false narrative about his position on the issues. The Democrats are in complete disarray with the most unpopular vice president in history as their party’s nominee.”

She added: “The only childlessness we should be talking about is the childless parents who lost their kids to the murderous thugs and deadly fentanyl coming across Kamala’s southern border.”