Vice-President Kamala Harris’s campaign raised $476 million in July, an eye-popping sum showing that donors who once seemed spooked about the prospects for November’s election with President Joe Biden are offering mountains of cash to boost his former No.2.

The haul by Harris, the Democratic National Committee and affiliated entities far outpaced Republican former president Donald Trump, whose campaign and assorted committees took in $212 million for July. 

The vice-president’s campaign also said it entered August with $577 million in cash on hand, which it said was the most for any presidential candidate at this point in the cycle. 

It was also well above the $500 million Trump’s team announced to start August.

“The tremendous outpouring of support we’ve seen in just a short time makes clear the Harris coalition is mobilised, growing, and ready to put in the work to defeat Trump this November,” Harris campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement. 

Trump’s July totals were augmented by an assassination attempt against him during a rally in Pennsylvania, which galvanised some of his fiercest supporters, and by his revealing of his running mate, Senator JD Vance, at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. 

Harris’s team hopes for another jolt early next week, when she is expected to announce her own running mate, and during the Democratic convention, which opens in Chicago on August 19. 

The figures released by both campaigns do not include full Federal Elections Commission fillings, which come later in August, making it difficult to determine how much of Harris’s haul came after Biden announced on July 21 that he was abandoning his re-election bid and endorsing Harris. 

That decision followed weeks of some top Democratic donors, as well as dozens of members of Congress, urging the 81-year-old president to step aside after his dismal debate performance on June 27. 

Still, Harris’s team had previously announced it took in more than $306 million during her first week as a presidential candidate, meaning most of July’s haul came after the vice-president took over the top of the ticket. 

She is looking to reset the race against Trump, stepping up her travel schedule and sharply criticising the Republican nominee as she leans more heavily into telling her personal and professional story. 

The vice-president will become her party’s formal presidential nominee through virtual voting by Democratic convention delegates, set to conclude on Monday. 

Her campaign said two-thirds of its July donations came from first-time contributors in the 2024 election cycle. 

In all, the month had more than three million donors make more than 4.2 million contributions, with more than two million donors making their first donation this cycle, while 94 per cent of July’s donations were less than $300. 

Fundraising aside, the Harris campaign said that by last weekend it had signed 170,000 new volunteers and held 2300 events mobilising thousands of supporters across battleground states.

–AAP