Future Forward, the main outside group working to elect Vice President Kamala Harris, was by far the biggest advertiser on her behalf.
Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times

Harris’s Main Allied Group Raised Over $900 Million to Aid Her Bid

The powerful super PAC, Future Forward, was sure to take much credit or much blame depending on how election night unfolded.

by · NY Times

Vice President Kamala Harris’s main allied group, Future Forward, raised over $900 million to support her White House bid, a staggering sum that is far more than any outside political organization has ever brought in during an election cycle.

The group’s fund-raising success during an unsuccessful election for Democrats has already made it a target for those in the party looking to assign blame. Future Forward sold some of the richest people in the world, including Bill Gates, on a failed path to victory. But Ms. Harris’s defeat was decisive enough in the seven battleground states that other Democrats have questioned whether different spending or other tactics would have in fact produced a different outcome.

Two leaders of Future Forward, which includes both a super PAC and multiple nonprofit arms, told staff members on a private call a few days before Election Day that the group had taken in a combined $950 million during the 2024 cycle, according to a person with knowledge of the remarks. The details on Future Forward’s fund-raising were laid out on the call by Chauncey McLean, the group’s president, and Katie Petrelius, its chief fund-raiser.

Two other people briefed by Future Forward leaders in recent weeks also said they had been told that the group’s total fund-raising topped $900 million. The three people insisted on anonymity to discuss the figures.

The full picture of Future Forward’s fund-raising is only now coming into view. The group declined to comment.

From the beginning of the 2024 cycle through Oct. 15, the group’s super PAC arm had raised $394 million, according to federal filings. The additional amount it raised from that point through Election Day will emerge next month, and is expected to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, based on the group’s cash position and spending patterns.

The nonprofit arm of Future Forward, which is not required to disclose the names of its donors, will share fund-raising figures in tax filings this month and next year. The billionaires Michael R. Bloomberg and Mr. Gates each donated about $50 million to the nonprofit group toward the end of the campaign, The New York Times previously reported. About 35 percent of the total amount raised by the super PAC originated from that nonprofit group, Future Forward USA Action.

Ms. Harris’s own campaign raised over $1 billion itself during her 107-day sprint. The vast scale of liberal spending on the race, which well outstripped that of Donald J. Trump and his Republican allies, has led Democrats to question the true value of money in a presidential campaign.

After Ms. Harris became the party’s presidential nominee, the super PAC aired about $450 million worth of ads, with about half spent on digital ads, including over $50 million spent on YouTube. The group made and tested 1,048 ads since Aug. 1, and conducted over seven million surveys of voters since then to test which ads would be the most effective to air.

Future Forward, which President Biden’s campaign blessed early this year as its main allied organization before he dropped out and endorsed Ms. Harris, had an initial goal of raising about $700 million, a total it cleared in the final weeks.

Future Forward’s outsize role, insularity and penchant for secrecy made it controversial in Democratic circles well before Ms. Harris’s defeat — and certainly afterward.

The group’s influence meant that if Democrats had won, Future Forward would have most likely received a great deal of credit, whether justified or not. Now, of course, the reverse is coming true.

Some Democratic fund-raisers and advisers to major donors have argued that the party spent too much money on television and that its advertising strategy clearly did not succeed. Defenders of Future Forward argue that its expensive campaign effort evidently made a difference because while Mr. Trump did much better nationally than he did in 2020, he only did somewhat better than he did that year in the battleground states where Democrats spent big money.

Some Democrats — including those in the upper brass of the campaign — also believed the group’s robust fund-raising meant it had an obligation to disburse money to smaller progressive groups, which the super PAC was slow to do. When confronted about this matter during the campaign, Mr. McLean sometimes told others that he disagreed that Future Forward had too much money and that his full program was not yet funded. The group told donors in mid-September, for instance, that it had a $121 million gap in its fund-raising, according to a presentation seen by The Times.

Instead of directly giving money to other outside groups, the super PAC preferred to buy ads jointly with them. But toward the end of the cycle, under some pressure, the super PAC and its nonprofit group did make such donations to progressive organizations, parting with over $150 million, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The biggest share, about $40 million, went to America Votes, a clearinghouse for progressive field-organizing work.

Future Forward has also quietly operated a 501(c)(3) nonprofit group that is not technically involved in politics, according to a document distributed to donors and obtained by The Times. It is unclear how much money flowed into the group, whose existence has not been previously reported.

The group, the Future Forward Education Fund, is part of a “fiscal sponsor” entity started in 2022 called Our American Future Foundation. The education fund planned to roll over most of the money to Future Forward’s 501(c)(4) arm and to spend $85 million to $150 million over the course of 2024 on “educational programming,” according to the document.

“All 501(c)(3) dollars that were raised were spent in accordance with the charitable rules,” said Eddie Vale, a spokesman for the Our American Future Foundation.

Future Forward has kept up its low profile since Election Day, to the consternation of some of its major supporters and staff members. Some individual donors and advisers have had recent conversations with Mr. McLean and Ms. Petrelius, but the organization has not done much proactive outreach to its donors, such as through a memo or a conference call. Mr. McLean did send a thank-you message to staff members in the hours after the election.

One person who will apparently be in touch with Democratic donors: Ms. Harris herself. She is expected to make thank-you calls to major Democratic donors, including those who gave to Future Forward, according to a person briefed on the matter.

Shane Goldmacher contributed reporting.

Our Coverage of the 2024 Election

Aftermath of the Election

Presidential Transition

More News and Analysis