After wrapping up her multiday battleground state tour, Vice President Kamala Harris will attend a major fundraiser in San Francisco on Sunday to court West Coast donors, some of whom had pulled their support for President Joe Biden after his poor debate performance in June.
Harris will court Bay Area donors using her deep roots in the area and the political blessing of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has represented San Francisco for nearly four decades in Congress and will join Harris at Sunday’s event, according to a Harris campaign official.
Tickets to the Harris Victory Fund event range from $3,300 to $50,000, and according to a campaign official, the event has sold out with nearly 700 RSVPs, raising more than $12 million for the campaign.
The haul adds to the historic $310 million the Harris-Walz campaign raised in July, which included $36 million raised in the 24 hours after Harris announced her pick of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate.
Walz will not attend Sunday’s fundraiser with Harris, according to a campaign official, who said that after the pair spent a week traveling the country together, the focus of this event will be on Harris and her connections to her home state of California.
After campaigning in Las Vegas with Harris on Saturday, Walz will fly to Minnesota, where he’ll remain the rest of the weekend, the Harris-Walz campaign told NBC News, adding that he’ll be on the East Coast next week.
Pelosi’s appearance on Sunday will be the latest step in a major shift by the president’s longtime ally and friend, who played a critical behind-the-scenes role in the Democrats’ pressure campaign to gently nudge him to drop out of the 2024 race.
During a July 10 appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Biden’s favorite show, the former House speaker said that time was “running short” for Biden to decide on his re-election plans — despite his and his campaign’s insistence that he would remain in the race.
In a private phone call a week after her MSNBC appearance, Pelosi warned Biden that his decision to stay in the race could cost Democrats the House and Senate, as well as the presidency, sources told NBC News.
Pelosi, who endorsed Harris around 24 hours after Biden dropped out of the race, explained more of her mindset in interviews this week tied to her new book, “The Art of Power.”
She told The New Yorker’s David Remnick in a podcast that the Biden campaign wasn’t “facing the fact of what was happening” and that she had “never been that impressed with [Biden’s] political operation.”
“My concern was: This ain’t happening, and we have to make a decision for this to happen. The president has to make the decision for that to happen,” she said.
In an interview with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Wednesday, Pelosi said, “It wasn’t just, though, about the House. I thought it was very important, very important for us to make sure and that Donald Trump never becomes president after that debate. We just have to win the election.”
She also said she had not spoken with the president since he stepped aside.
Asked if there is a way back to her friendship with Biden during a taped interview on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki” that aired Sunday, Pelosi noted the love and respect that three generations of her family have for Biden, including herself and her husband Paul Pelosi, she added that she hopes “that would sustain as we go forward.”
Pelosi went on to say that winning the November election is the top priority “to sustain his legacy.”
“One good day, and another,” Pelosi said. “No wasted time, no underutilized resources and no regrets the day after the election that we could have done more.”
