‘White Dudes for Harris’ raises more than $4M as critics ramp up attacks

The Dude and Luke Skywalker were among the famous faces on a fundraising call that, according to organizers, raised more than $4 million US on Monday for U.S. vice-president Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign.

The three-hour “White Dudes for Harris” call was the latest in a series of Zoom meetups organized by diverse groups of Harris supporters, often along racial or other demographic lines. 

It included such celebrities as Mark Hamill, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Jeff Bridges — best known to some for playing The Dude in the 1998 comedy The Big Lebowski. 

Participants, both famous and not, pledged support and money for the Democratic hopeful including Hamill who delivered his famous Star Wars line: “I’m Luke Skywalker. I’m here to rescue you.”

There were some 190,000 people on the call at its peak, say organizers, including U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. All had been rumoured as Harris’s potential running mate, though Cooper withdrew himself from consideration on Monday. He didn’t mention it during the call. 

Harris supporters have organized several such fundraising calls — focused on Black women, Hispanic women, Black men, Asian Americans, Native Americans and the 2SLGBTQ+ community — since U.S. President Joe Biden dropped out and endorsed her, propelling his vice-president to the forefront of the race and breathing new life into the Democrats’ election efforts. 

Prior to Biden’s departure, there were reports that the Democrats were losing donors, says Lydia Miljan, a professor of political science at the University of Windsor. 

“So once he bowed out from the race, then those same donors went flocking to her,” she said. 

The call focused on white women had about 200,000 people and raised some $2 million US, say organizers. 

But the “White Dudes” call was an especially significant shot across the bow of Donald Trump and the Republicans, who campaign heavily to, and have long relied on votes from, white men. 

The Harris campaign wants “to make the case that not only do they have the traditional big donors, but they’re going to have new voters, voters who weren’t typically associated with the Democrats,” said Miljan.

“So ‘White Dudes for Harris,’ for example, is both a good way to get fundraising, but also a good way to build momentum and try to change the narrative at the polls.”

Attacks have ramped up against Harris since Biden dropped out. Some Republicans have referred to her as a “DEI” candidate — a derisive reference to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the workplace. Others have decried Harris for not having biological children, echoing a comment Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance made in 2021, when he called Harris and other Democrats “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives.”

In response, some Harris supporters are now calling for a “Cat Ladies for Kamala” fundraiser. 

Republicans and other critics have condemned the Harris fundraising calls as racist or sexist for focusing on gender or race. 

Miljan, however, says she’s not surprised by them. 

The Harris campaign is “very attuned to, not just geographically where their votes are, but sort of what are the demographics about. So it’s not surprising that they would, be also fundraising in the same vein.”

Miljan notes this doesn’t occur in Canada because of the strict laws around campaign fundraising.

“[In Canada] we can’t accept corporate donations. We can’t accept union donations. So money isn’t this big a factor during the campaign. And we’re also restricted in how we can spend our money during an election campaign,” she said. 

Prior to the latest Zoom call, Harris’s campaign said it had raised $200 million US and signed up 170,000 new volunteers since she became the Democrats’ likely presidential candidate. 

Harris, 59, would be the first Black woman and first South Asian woman to secure a major American party’s nomination for president. Harris has already gained the backing of enough delegates needed to win the nomination.

The official nomination will take place at the Democratic National Convention in August.