Even those who predicted Donald Trump would win the election were shocked by the scale of his victory. Trump scored easy victories in every swing state, had a raft of down-ballot wins and, for the first time for a Republican since Reagan, even won the popular vote. All of which has led many to side-eye the Kamala Harris campaign team and ask, simply, what the heck were you doing?
Ever since those first results came in political morticians have been conducting a meticulous autopsy on the Harris campaign.
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But there’s one other factor that has people shaking their heads in disbelief: the Harris campaign’s wild spending on securing celebrity endorsements. As reported in The Spectator, Harris’ strategy to win over swing-state voters was a series of extravagant concerts from stars including Lady Gaga, Jon Bon Jovi, Katy Perry, Ricky Martin, and Christina Aguilera.
Presumably, the thinking was that free performances would get people to Harris rallies, where they’d be won over by the candidate and vote for her. Needless to say, this didn’t work. Now it appears that this starstruck strategy wasn’t just a failure, it was a ridiculously expensive failure. These shows cost as much as $20 million, with that figure inflated as they had to be put on at short notice. This sum is apparently for production costs alone and doesn’t account for any payments made to the artists themselves (though, to be clear, we don’t know if the stars were paid to play).
As reported by the New York Post, the Harris campaign burned through so much money on these concerts that they ran out of funds, had to cancel a planned appearance by Alanis Morrisette, and on election day they were $20 million in debt.
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At this point, it’s perhaps worth underlining that the Harris campaign in total raised $997.2 million, compared to Trump’s $388 million. So, if you donated money to the Harris campaign you’re right to feel a little indignant that your hard-earned cash went towards getting Katy Perry on stage for precisely zero political effect.
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Whether they’ll ever suffer any consequences for frittering away so much money and handing Trump the presidency is anyone’s guess, but let’s face it, they probably won’t.