Vice President Kamala Harris spent well over $20 million on expenses related to event production in the final weeks of the 2024 presidential election, with millions flowing to production companies owned by entertainers, venue payments for star-studded campaign appearances, and makeup services.
The Harris campaign’s final financial disclosure, released Thursday night, covers disbursements ranging from Oct. 17 to Nov. 25, meaning that the Democratic presidential ticket spent over half a million dollars per day in the final stretch of the election to cover event expenses, according to a Washington Examiner review of campaign finance filings.
Among other payments, the campaign wired funds to companies owned by Beyonce, John Legend, Ricky Martin, Fat Joe, Flo Milli, Katy Perry, and Christina Aguilera. The Washington Examiner previously reported on how one source familiar with the campaign said it spent six figures to build a set for the vice president’s appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast and how it had paid $1 million to Oprah Winfrey’s production company.
One expenditure that stood out among Harris’s spending on events, the lion’s share of which went to professional production companies, was a $20,000 disbursement to Philly Cuts Barbershop. Shortly after the payment was made on Oct. 29, the Harris campaign released a video of the vice president sitting inside of Philly Cuts and speaking with workers about why black men should support her candidacy. The Harris campaign did not disclose that the barbershop, whose employees spoke positively about the vice president, was paid to shoot the video.
At the time, there was some polling to suggest that support for the vice president was slipping among black men, with some conservative critics arguing that her connection with black America was inauthentic due to her upbringing in Montreal and Berkeley, California. President-elect Donald Trump approximately doubled his support among black men younger than 45 compared to his 2020 electoral performance.
Another standout expenditure was the $22,000 the Harris campaign paid to Team Liquid, a group of professional gamers. It’s not clear what the e-sports team was paid for — however, the campaign did make an effort to connect with young male gamers by releasing a Fortnite map during the final week of the election. Commentators noted how the map, titled “Freedom Town,” didn’t allow players to use guns.
Event space for Harris’s campaign stops also racked up hefty bills. An event featuring Bruce Springsteen, John Legend, and former President Barack Obama at Temple University’s Liacouras Center, for instance, cost over $200,000. The Harris campaign would later pay John Legend’s touring company about $40,000 on Nov. 19.
An event with Mark Cuban at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, meanwhile, ran about $40,000, while an appearance with Liz Cheney at the Royal Oak Music Theatre in Michigan cost the campaign a little over $60,000.
Entertainers who threw their support behind Harris financially benefited from the campaign.
Parkwood Production Media, Beyonce’s production company, took in $165,000. Kitty Purry, affiliated with Katy Perry, brought in about $190,000. Sneaker Addict Touring, owned by rapper Fat Joe, meanwhile, took in $20,000, and Three Wishes Productions, Christina Aguilera’s company, brought in nearly $400,000.
The bulk of Harris’s event spending went to dedicated production companies. 22 Degrees, FREEMAN, Industrial Strength Staging, Majic Productions, Maryland Event Services, Production Management One, VOX Productions, and Wizard Studios North collectively raked in over $13 million for a variety of services related to event production. Majic Productions, which is based in Wisconsin, has worked with both the NFL and the NBA.
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Ghet-O-Vision Entertainment, a small record label based in Atlanta, received $10,000 from the campaign. Harris ultimately spent roughly $1.5 billion on her campaign, including $622 million on media production and advertising purchases between July 21 and Nov. 25.
“Money can’t buy you love or a good candidate,” one Trump campaign adviser previously told the Washington Examiner. “Advertising is a pretty important source of information for swing voters. It no doubt matters, but it’s not enough. It doesn’t matter if you have the wrong message and it’s not delivered in a compelling way. What her campaign was missing was any effort to break with the unpopular administration she has been a part of.”
The Harris campaign did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
