Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) is turning to Hillary Clinton’s former political donors and campaign staffers as she ramps up her 2020 presidential campaign.
Breitbart News noted this trend in 2017, as Harris began campaigning for president almost from the moment she reached the U.S. Senate. As The Hill reported at the time, Harris began tapping into Clinton’s donors immediately, offering them an opportunity to regroup after the disappointment of 2016 (and the previous disappointment of the 2008 campaign).
The Washington Examiner reported Wednesday:
Democratic California Sen. Kamala Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign is scooping up Hillary Clinton’s deep-pocketed donors while nabbing some of her former staff as well.
A review of Harris’s recent fundraising circuit reveals a successful effort by the California senator to court rich Americans, particularly in California and Florida, who backed Clinton in 2016.
While New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has wooed Clinton donor Bernard Schwartz and Sen. Amy Klobuchar has done her own California tour, neither have held meetings and fundraisers on the coasts in the numbers that Harris has. Two other major candidates, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, have sworn off big-dollar donors of the type that funded Clinton.
Harris has also snapped up former Clinton staffers from the beginning, and Newsday noted in January that Harris shares Clinton’s penchant for identity politics.
As for former president Barack Obama, some loyalists are enthusiastic about former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX), but there is some speculation that some could back former Vice President Joe Biden if (or when) he enters the race.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.