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Kamala Harris Doubles Campaign Cash to Media Firm That Boosted Bernie's Profile

Harris spent more than twice as much on firm during the third quarter than she did throughout the second quarter

Sen. Kamala Harris / Getty Images
October 21, 2017

Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) more than doubled her spending in the third quarter on an online media firm that played a major part in boosting the national profile of Sen. Bernie Sanders (D., Vt.) during his run for the Democratic presidential primary, Federal Election Commission filings show.

Harris, who is regularly floated as a Democratic candidate for president in 2020, paid Revolution Messaging LLC, a Washington, D.C.,-based online media firm, $255,000 from her campaign committee, Kamala Harris for Senate, between July 1 and September 30, according to its October quarterly report.

The campaign spent a majority of this money—$234,737—on web advertisements, the filings show. The remaining $21,000 went toward campaign consulting. Harris's campaign reported spending $508,270.03 the last three months, meaning that the $255,737 that went to Revolution Messaging accounted for more than half of its expenditures.

The money that went to Revolution Messaging during the third quarter is more than double the $110,000 the campaign had spent on the firm during the second quarter. Harris's campaign spent nearly $300,000 on its services during the first quarter and has now given more than $650,000 to the media firm this year.

Revolution Messaging helped boost Bernie Sanders's national profile last year when he was running in the Democratic primary against Hillary Clinton, pushing his message out and creating his digital and branding strategy.

"In the spring of 2015, before the campaign launched, we knew Bernie Sanders was a leader who stood on the right side of history," the group wrote in their case study of the campaign. "But Bernie was polling around 3 percent, had no establishment support, little name recognition, and was running against a popular and 'inevitable' Democratic primary opponent. We had our work cut out for us. With no offline fundraising team, no Super PAC, and no Wall Street money, we would have to raise almost all of the campaign's money from small-dollar donations."

Revolution Messaging helped Sanders raise $218 million online and won a number of awards for the work it had done for the campaign.

Recent reports have indicated that liberal donors have been buzzing about Harris, who has attended a number of events with big donors, including a reported event in the Hamptons with former top contributors to Hillary Clinton.

"She's running for president, take it to the bank," one donor reportedly said at the time. "She's absolutely going to run."

Harris's campaign is renting office space from a travel agency on Capitol Hill, the Washington Free Beacon previously reported. The California senator also hired a number of former Clinton campaign veterans in her Washington, D.C., office.

Harris's campaign did not return a request for comment by press time.