Or laundering it?
The Democratic National Committee, which began 2026 in debt and
nearly $100 million behind its Republican counterpart, made a $6.5 million bet in the final weeks of 2025 to buy former Vice President Kamala Harris’s old email list of supporters.That money almost immediately went to help Ms. Harris pay off expenses left over from her 2024 campaign.Ms. Harris’s new political group, Fight for the People PAC, spent nearly $7 million in the final month of 2025, new federal filings show, overwhelmingly on presidential campaign expenses that had not previously been disclosed as debts. Those payments included $4 million to a media production company, nearly $200,000 to a polling firm and $99,100 to the company that manages events for The Roots, a hip-hop band that performed at Ms. Harris’s final rally in Philadelphia, the filings show.Officials with the D.N.C. have said the purchase of the vaunted Harris supporter list — which helped the 2024 nominee raised $1.5 billion in 15 weeks — is a valuable investment that would eventually more than pay for itself, helping the strapped party tap into her wide network of small contributors. But the transaction raised questions about the party’s decision to spend money that ultimately went to pay off debts from 2024 at a moment when it is fighting to win back the House and faces an uphill battle to try to reclaim the Senate.