More than 1.5 million donors opened their wallets for the first time in July to support Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, in the early days of her campaign.

Nearly $184 million flooded into Harris’ presidential campaign committees from individual donors since President Biden dropped out of the race on July 21, according to a Times analysis of Federal Election Commission filings released last week. Harris raised nearly a third of Biden’s total with more than 2.6 million contributions averaging $69, $41 less than Biden’s average contribution.

July 21 and 22 were the biggest fundraising days in the entire campaign cycle. Most of that boost came from small dollar contributions, under $200.

Biden’s exit and Harris’ ascendance sparked an immediate wave of enthusiasm. On the night of the 21st, members of Win With Black Women held a Zoom in support that attracted an estimated 90,000 viewers. Younger generations that the Democrats had struggled to engage flocked to the Harris campaign with viral memes that have flooded social media platforms such as TikTok. Both women and young voters are critical groups that Harris needs to vote to win in November.

Nearly 70% of her support was from donors who had not given previously to President Biden in this election cycle, according to a Times analysis of July fundraising reports released Aug. 20.

Every single state saw more than half of its contributions come from new donors. The biggest increases were in the South and Midwest.

Overall the most money came from large metropolitan areas on the coasts. The New York, San Francisco, Washington and Los Angeles metro areas donated a combined $48.7 million to Harris from July 21 to 31.

In Los Angeles, heavily Latino areas on the Eastside and white neighborhoods in Silver Lake and Echo Park had many first-time donors. Many Asian-majority neighborhoods in Long Beach and the Valley stepped up for the first time for the first major presidential candidate of Indian heritage. Around the county, South Asian donors gave $2.4 million in the first days of her campaign. A similar pattern of excitement can be seen in Little Indias across the country, in Edison, N.J.; Queens, N.Y; and areas around Devon Avenue in Chicago.

In San Francisco, 70% of donors were new in Noe Valley, which is home to many young white families. Some Latino and Black majority ZIP Codes near San Leandro saw a similar shift towards new donors. Harris seems to be drawing on renewed enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket in majority Black areas: ZIP codes around Compton in L.A. and Oakland saw big increases in new donors.

In the first 11 days that Harris was endorsed as presidential nominee, she raised almost half of what Biden raised since the beginning of 2023 from Atlanta. Areas with high percentages of Black residents saw big increases in new donors. The swing state of Georgia is a critical voting bloc, with a large proportion of Black voters and working-class families.

Donors from the Charlotte metro area in North Carolina poured in more than $745,000 for Harris in new donations. These areas are majority Black and mostly lower income. Seventy percent of donors in the state were new and they brought in a total of $3.3 million for Harris.

Majority Black and Latino areas in the South and West sides of Chicago gave heavily to Harris. New donors nearly tripled in the majority Black Hyde Park area.

In New York, majority Latino and Black ZIP codes in the Bronx, Harlem and Brooklyn saw three new donors for every returning donor. In the South Bronx ZIP Code 10454, where the population is 70% Latino and 25% Black, 86% of Harris donations were from new donors.

In neighboring New Jersey, a comparable pattern can be seen in the eastern part of Newark. The area is home to young lower- to middle-income Latinos.

This boost in new donors is especially important in swing states like Arizona, where a wave of new donors from middle-class, majority Latino communities in the Phoenix area showed their support for Harris. South of Phoenix, in Laveen, 83% of support came from new donors. Some contributions came from Republican-leaning areas.

Texas is a majority Republican state with blue pockets in Austin and Houston. Just west of Houston, near Katy, Harris donations spiked in areas that voted heavily for Donald Trump in 2020. The Latino and Black area south of Houston, around Rosharon, previously gave less than $1,000, but new support for Harris grew to more than $10,500.

Since the filings only include contributions through July, the data won’t show the impact that running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has had fundraising in working-class areas. Both Madison, Wis. and the Minneapolis area had twice as many new donors as returning donors. On Aug. 20, Harris and Walz visited left-leaning Milwaukee, an area that’s given $520,000 in new donations.

After the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last week, it seems like the energy is only growing. The Harris campaign said it’s raised $540 million in August, with a surge of support after her DNC speech. The campaign said nearly a third of contributions during the convention week were first-time contributors.

The debate over debates tells us a great deal about the state of the presidential race.

If only we could figure out what it is.

Donald Trump, by slamming “ABC FAKE NEWS,” suggested he may pull out of the Sept. 10 faceoff. He said yesterday at a Vietnamese restaurant in Virginia that it was Kamala Harris who is trying to back out of the debate.

A top Harris campaign official, Michael Tyler, responded on MSNBC that the vice president is actually anxious to debate and he thought all the issues had been worked out.

KAMALA HARRIS, TIME COVER GIRL: IS HER SURGE AGAINST TRUMP FUELED BY AN ENDLESS MEDIA HONEYMOON?

My best read is that the debate will happen and that this is the kind of last-minute negotiation for which Trump is renowned.

Remember, this debate was worked out with Joe Biden, whose first encounter with Trump, which the president demanded, was such a disaster that it knocked him out of the race. That led to Harris as the substitute nominee, which was not a “coup” – it’s clear that Trump misses Biden – because nobody ran against Kamala.

A good rule of thumb is that the candidate who is perceived to be behind, or to have lost momentum, wants the debate more urgently.

At the CNN debate, Biden insisted that the microphones be muted for the candidate who wasn’t recognized to speak. He was obviously trying to avoid a repeat of their first 2020 encounter, when Trump constantly talked over him.

But now Kamala is insisting that the mikes be kept live no matter who is speaking. Her campaign says this will demonstrate that Trump isn’t capable of acting “presidential” for 90 minutes.

Another way to look at it: If the former president does constantly interrupt her, it will remind people what they don’t like about him – and could seem more rude when up against a woman of color. Then she can complain that he trampled on her.

TRUMP, REJECTING ADVICE, TRIES MOCKERY, INSULTS, AI AGAINST KAMALA, BUT IS IT WORKING?

In fairness, though, what Harris wants now is the way it’s been in virtually every presidential fall debate. It was the CNN debate, at the insistence of the 81-year-old Biden, that was the exception.

Is this dispute enough to derail the thing? Again, I doubt it. 

Here’s what Trump had to say (and he’s back tweeting!):

“I watched ABC FAKE NEWS this morning, both lightweight reporter Jonathan Carl’s (K?) ridiculous and biased interview of Tom Cotton (who was fantastic!), and their so-called Panel of Trump Haters, and I ask, why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?… 

Trump slammed ABC and other mainstream outlets in a Truth Social tirade suggesting he may not participate in his scheduled Sept. 10 debate with Vice President Harris. (Ian Maule/Getty Images)

Will panelist Donna Brazil[e] give the questions to the Marxist Candidate like she did for Crooked Hillary Clinton? Will Kamala’s best friend, who heads up ABC, do likewise.” After making fun of the name of George Stephanopoulos – who will not be involved in the debate – Trump says: They’ve got a lot of questions to answer!!! Why did Harris turn down Fox, NBC, CBS, and even CNN? Stay tuned!!!”

The ABC panel that drew Trump’s ire was Karl, Politico’s Jonanthan Martin and Rachael Bade, and contributor Donna Brazile.

The 45th president, who is facing an overwhelmingly hostile press corps, may also be trying to grab some attention after a month of pro-Kamala coverage. The Democratic convention was successful by almost any measure, including Harris’ speech, but when Rachel Maddow said that she and others at the MSNBC mothership “stood up and cheered” over Tim Walz’s appearance, that was rather striking.

What’s equally fascinating is how many pundits defended Biden’s mental acuity, but now, with Trump running against a 59-year-old woman, are trying to portray him as having lost a few steps.

Most journalists and commentators have displayed little interest in Harris’ refusal to do interviews, with some even saying she shouldn’t because things are going so well. Her deputy campaign manager told me on “Media Buzz” that the first one would be by Aug. 31, and we’ll see if it’s with a sympathetic liberal.

Trump, meanwhile, did two lengthy news conferences in about a week – and MSNBC refused to take the second one live, with their pundits saying he lies all the time anyway.

RFK JR QUITS, DENOUNCES MEDIA

RFK Jr. stepped on Harris’ post-convention vibe fest by dropping out and endorsing Trump, which certainly could help him at least marginally in such a close race. MSNBC, again, refused to take Kennedy’s presser live. Now does anyone seriously believe that if RFK had endorsed Kamala Harris, the network wouldn’t have aired it live – and immediately invited him on?

Kennedy fans are welcome to vote for him, although his siblings called his Trump endorsement the ultimate betrayal. His response was to scapegoat the media:

“ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC and CNN combined gave only two live interviews. Those networks instead ran a continuous deluge of hit pieces with inaccurate, often vile audios and defamatory smears …

“Your institutions have made themselves government mouthpieces and stenographers for the organs of power.”

RFK Jr.’s withdrawal from the race effectively neutered the post-convention morale bump anticipated for Harris. (Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Many interviews are pretaped, but the reason the networks gave RFK little airtime is he was a fringe candidate with no plausible hope of winning a single state. He was certainly a colorful candidate – saying he had a brain worm, covering up how he put a dead bear carcass in his car that he planned to eat for dinner – but that’s something entirely different.

And consider this: RFK ran as a Democrat, then an independent. He tried to make a deal with both Kamala and Trump to trade his endorsement for the promise of a top health care job if either won. That didn’t work out.

SUBSCRIBE TO HOWIE’S MEDIA BUZZMETER PODCAST, A RIFF ON THE DAY’S HOTTEST STORIES

So he endorsed Trump anyway without a job promise, unless there was a wink and a nod.

Doesn’t that raise questions about what Kennedy actually stands for?

Now, as such speakers as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama warned, Harris faces a tough two months where Republicans will relentlessly attack her record and particularly the left-wing positions from 2020 that she changed without explanation. 

Some analysts say she calls herself the underdog as a way of positioning herself as the change candidate, but she is in fact the underdog.

A friend of mine is having problems with her ex.

Charismatic, rich and famous, and also can’t commit.

Back in 1999, when he was first infatuated with my friend — let’s call her “Choice” — he went on “Meet the Press” and told the nation over and over that Choice was the one for him.

Then, when he started thinking about public office again in 2011, he split up with Choice and started dating Pro-Life.

It happens. And breakups can be ugly. But this guy went to an extreme.

By 2016, Donald Trump (you guessed the guy was Trump, right?) was suggesting women should be punished for exercising their right to choose. After the House passed a national ban on abortion in 2017, this guy not only applauded the bill but also spent a good chunk of 2018 trying to get the Senate to follow suit. In fact he was the first sitting president to address the March for Life convention, saying “send it to my desk for signing.” It was a handful of votes short.

Hard to believe. I don’t know what Choice ever saw in the guy, because he’s all over the place.

“American women are not stupid,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren said recently about this presidential election, noting that 14 states have essentially banned abortion since Roe vs. Wade was overturned by Trump-appointed justices. “We are not going to trust the futures of our daughters and granddaughters to two men who have openly bragged about blocking access to abortion for women all across the country.”

In 2022, he crowed about what his Supreme Court had done. Now it’s 2024, and he’s struggling to meet younger women at the polls, so he’s back to making empty promises to impress Choice — with his campaign claiming he would veto any national ban. This from the guy who almost managed to push one through.

Total user.

He had his wingman, Sen. JD Vance, go on “Meet the Press” on Sunday to clarify the former president’s history with Choice — something that had to be done only because he has been in and out of the relationship for 25 years.

“It’s important to step back and say, ‘What has Donald Trump actually said on the abortion question?’ ” Vance said.

OK, let’s do it.

In 1999, on “Meet the Press” when Trump was considering a run for the White House, then-host Tim Russert asked him whether he would ban abortions, and he said he would not.

In fact, Trump repeatedly said he was pro-choice. Even “very pro-choice.”

But to win the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, he couldn’t be. So, he dumped Choice and said those who seek an abortion should have “some form of punishment.” One Trump term later, and that is the reality facing 2 in 5 women in this country. That’s why I keep wondering why Choice would trust him again.

Or anyone like him. Because it must be said: The chaos that has ensued since Roe was overturned is not only Trump’s fault.

Republicans targeted that decision for 50 years, and for the most part, with the same amount of critical thinking and thoughtfulness demonstrated by Trump. One member of Congress, Todd Akin, infamously said pregnancies caused by rape need not be excluded from abortion bans, because “if it’s legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” That was in 2012. A decade later, to receive an abortion, a 10-year-old rape victim in Indiana was reportedly forced to travel to Ohio.

Vance, who will never be in a position to make that choice himself, wasn’t happy about it.

“Look, I think two wrongs don’t make a right,” he said regarding exceptions for rape or incest. He also used the word “inconveniences” when characterizing the decision. As if carrying a pregnancy to term would be a mere “inconvenience” to a fifth-grader.

This weekend on “Meet the Press,” Vance also said: “No Republican with any reasonable power is saying that we should have a complete national abortion ban,” despite the fact that for 40 years a federal abortion ban has been part of the Republican Party’s platform.

It was removed just last month, at the request of Trump. He is trying to get back together with my friend Choice so he can get back in the White House.

But Choice needs more than talk. Choice needs a partner who is willing to commit.

@LZGranderson