EDITORIAL: The expensive lessons of the failed Harris campaign

Money can’t buy happiness or a presidential election. Democratic donors just learned that the hard way.

After a candidate loses a high-profile, competitive race, the blame game begins. There are many places to point the finger when assessing Vice President Kamala Harris’ run. She entered the race late and only after President Joe Biden had a career-ending debate implosion. She didn’t run a primary gantlet, which meant voters didn’t know her very well. Having to endure even a token primary may have helped her improve her interview skills. She struggled to separate herself from the failed policies of the Biden/Harris administration. She took a number of radical positions when running for president in 2019. The Trump campaign effectively used her own words to show voters that she was a radical leftist.

But one common excuse for political failure, a lack of funding, doesn’t apply. Ms. Harris spent an astonishing $1.5 billion during her 15-week campaign. That works out to around $100 million a week. But even that understates her financial resources. When combined with Mr. Biden’s fundraising, the two Democratic campaigns had more than $2.1 billion according to The New York Times. The Times reported the Trump campaign and Republican Party raised $1.2 billion.

Money is certainly an important factor in political races. But the election results show its limits.

“There is not a single expenditure in a different spot that would have changed the outcome of the race,” Bakari Sellers, a close ally of Ms. Harris, told the Times. Instead, “we had so much money it was hard to get it out the door.”

Perhaps this explains why the Harris campaign spent millions on celebrity performances and social media influencers. It even paid $900,000 to advertise on the Las Vegas Sphere.

All this is especially ironic given the progressive battle to limit free speech rights by restricting political expenditures. The far-left Brennan Center for Justice says it’s committed to a “long-term push to overturn Citizens United,” in which the Supreme Court affirmed that arbitrary limits on political spending ran afoul of the Bill of Rights. During oral arguments, the government admitted that the law in question would potentially allow federal regulators to ban books. Ouch.

Despite the massive fundraising numbers, Axios reported recently that the Harris campaign is likely to conclude with “millions of dollars in debt.” There’s an old adage about politicians not being responsible with other people’s money. That’s certainly true when it comes to taxpayer dollars. In Ms. Harris’ case, it applied to her donors as well.

They may have been costly, but the Harris campaign has provided the American public with valuable lessons.