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EXCLUSIVE: The Vice President has emerged among Hollywood donors as the top successor to head the Democratic ticket as calls for Joe Biden to step aside intensify, with a caveat.
“Kamala Harris has put in the work, she’s the obvious choice for sure,” says a longtime contributor to the party and various presidential contenders says of the VP.
“Can you imagine a former prosecutor up against a crook like Trump, she’d rip him apart,” another Hollywood supporter stated, noting the Vice President’s past stints as San Francisco D.A. and California’s Attorney General.
“She had a rocky first couple of years, but Harris is a real team player and out there getting a great reaction on reproductive rights,” says a producer who was a big donor to Harris’ short-lived 2020 White House bid and both the 2020 and 2024 Democratic tickets.
As a part of that team player reality and having a shared campaign committee with POTUS, the VP would instantly have access to the more than $250 million war chest the Biden-Harris reelection effort has accumulated so far.
A seamless counterbalance to Trump’s aggressive fundraising off his various indictments, conviction and recent assassination attempt, former California senator Harris could see donations that have been drying up since President Biden’s disastrous June 27 debate performance reinvigorated. “The money would start flowing again like water if Kamala was the candidate,” another Tinseltown supporter declares. “There may be some more wait and see, but everyone would get on board once we have a new candidate,” another now hesitant donor says of the check writers to both the campaign and the various super PACs
Out on the campaign trail the past few days while the 81-year-old POTUS recovers from a new bout of Covid, the Veep is actually on a call with some top donors this afternoon, at the direct request of the campaign.
The gist of the call is to encourage donors not to put down their check writing pens as the president’s future is under discussion, we understand. Biden campaign co-chair and Hollywood ringleader Jeffrey Katzenberg, who met with Biden is Las Vegas earlier this week, is also on the call.
With increasing calls from lawmakers for Biden to withdraw from the race, and rampant media speculation over where he is in the decision-making process, a number of top donors and supporters have even been gaming out the scenarios should Harris be the nominee, including how she would have to essentially be “re-introduced” in the weeks leading up to the Democratic National Convention, and who she should choose as her running mate, whether that be a southern Democratic governor like Roy Cooper of North Carolina or Andy Beshear of Kentucky, or another figure from a swing state, former astronaut and Navy captain Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ).
Others see the need for a new candidate, yet stress it can’t be Harris by default.
“We can’t have a repeat of 2016,” a self-described “deeply concerned” contributor notes of the VP’s raised profile and success on the stump and raising funds. “It has to be an open convention to be fair.”
The general election victory of Donald Trump eight years ago is viewed by a number of donors that Deadline spoke to as a consequence of the DNC coronation of Hillary Clinton at the expense of Sen. Bernie Sanders and to some extent then VP Biden.
“Biden leaving and Harris being just anointed would be another disaster, Republicans would skewer us as being anti-democratic.”
“Other candidates have to be considered,” one operative said, as names like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) have been mentioned in the past month. One scenario being discussed in top political and donor circles is that the president steps aside, acknowledges the qualifications of Harris, and releases his delegates to make up their own minds at the DNC in Chicago next month.
Biden and the campaign have insisted repeatedly that he is staying in the race.
In a statement released by the campaign today, Biden said, “I look forward to getting back on the campaign trail next week to continue exposing the threat of Donald Trump’s Project 2025 agenda while making the case for my own record and the vision that I have for America: one where we save our democracy, protect our rights and freedoms, and create opportunity for everyone.”
But more House Democratic lawmakers — Jared Huffman, Marc Veasey, Chuy Garcia and Mark Pocan — called for Biden to exit the race. On Morning Joe, Biden’s campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said that “absolutely” Biden was in the race, but she argued that there were still multiple paths to victory.
“We know that we’ve slipped a bit from the debate, and we know that the president has to prove to the American people exactly what he believes,” she said.
Biden also has gotten support from high profile Democratic figures like Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY), the latter of whom warned on Thursday of huge discord ahead by changing the ticket and facing the possibility of an open convention.
Other industry donors also have lined up behind Biden. James Costos, the former HBO executive and U.S. ambassador to Spain, is among the co-hosts of a July 26 fundraiser with Biden in Laguna Beach. Other co-hosts include Anne Earhart, and Janet Keller and Bernie Schneider, per the invite.
After George Clooney wrote an op ed last week calling for Biden to withdraw, citing the president’s performance not just at the Democratic debate but at a Los Angeles fundraiser on June 15, Costos said in a statement that it was a record breaking event and noted that the president had just traveled from Europe. “All I have to say is that I was proud to be there and I’m proud to be with the President now, I’m firmly committed to supporting and respecting President Biden and the Biden-Harris ticket,” said Costos, who also co-hosted the earlier fundraiser.
Yet the doubts about Biden have continued and, after a brief respite following the assassination attempt on Trump, returned as the president announced that he had Covid.
Rob Reiner wrote on X/Twitter on Wednesday, “The handwriting is on the wall in bold capital letters: It’s time for President Biden, for whom we have nothing but the greatest respect, to save our Democracy by passing the torch to a new generation.”
With very few expectations, there is fear that the doubts will not disappear, and color the convention and overshadow what should be a week highlighting his legislative accomplishments and taint his legacy. Also, donors we spoke to Friday emphasized that Trump’s nearly 90-minute-long speech last night to the RNC should offer no succor to the faction that wants Biden to stay in the race. “Trump’s speech was sh*t, a mess, but that’s not a good reason to get caught up in keeping Biden,” one deep pocket agency exec exclaimed this morning after the former president’s low energy record long RNC remarks on Thursday night. “The polls are too tight and getting worse for us.”
While some donors certainly have misgivings about Harris, there also is some skepticism that any other Democrat could wage a successful campaign to challenge her, even if Biden releases his delegates but does not endorse. After three weeks of Democratic infighting, the pressure will be on to rally around Harris.
“I don’t see how somebody else runs without tearing the country apart,” said one top Democratic supporter. “If the goal is to beat Donald Trump, there should not be someone else in this race.”
That said, the idea of a change at the top of the ticket is being viewed by some with a tad more optimism, following Trump’s meandering acceptance speech that, while riveting at the start as he talked of his assassination attempt, reverted to one of his standard rally speeches by the end. “It’s actually Trump’s nightmare, because we are doing reality TV better than he is,” the supporter said.
