Kamala Harris Is Democrats’ New National Fundraising Machine

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) may not have achieved much since arriving in Washington, other than interrupting witnesses in official hearings.

But her performances — preserved and promoted on YouTube — have made her a prospect for the presidential race in 2020 — and the Democrats’ latest fundraising weapon, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, as she lends her name to other candidates and causes.

The Chronicle notes (original links):

Last July she had 134,865 Facebook followers. She has five times that many today. A year ago, she had 53,873 Twitter followers; today she has 10 times as many.

That type of digital reach has helped her blossom as a reliable fundraiser. Without having to hit the road to give stump speeches at fundraisers, Harris has raised $1.6 million online since election day, with an average contribution of $19. She’s dished out $600,000 to 23 of her Senate Democratic colleagues facing re-election, roughly half of whom sit in states that Trump won.

It is a gesture that will engender a lot of goodwill with her more senior Democratic colleagues because, as we know, nothing in Washington speaks louder than cash given to a re-election campaign. Especially from a freshman who just pulled into town.

This high-flying start has the East Coast media teeing up an endless series of “Is Harris going to run for president in 2020?” stories. Easy, now. The real story is that California’s junior senator is quietly building a base of support that will help her do her day job – and perhaps win or save a seat or two for Democrats in the Senate. Not bad for someone who hasn’t been there long enough to suffer through Washington’s July humidity.

The Chronicle goes on to compare Harris to Obama in terms of fundraising potential.

As Breitbart News noted last month, Harris’s method is to interrupt witnesses in order to draw sanction from the committee chair. She then claims she was the one being interrupted, and tees up a fundraising email. Her fans in the mainstream media are often eager to add race and gender to the mix: after one of her episodes, the New York Times ran an article titled, “The Universal Phenomenon of Men Interrupting Women.” That amplifies the message, and the money.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.