Democrats face a financial crisis heading into the 2026 midterms, and Kamala Harris's catastrophic 2024 presidential campaign is largely to blame. She burned through more than a billion dollars only to lose every single swing state, and now the party's wealthiest donors are closing their wallets. The message is clear: billionaire liberals are tired of funding a party that's drifted so far left it can't connect with ordinary Americans.
As PJ Media reported last month, the Democratic National Committee is in a substantial financial pickle. And their situation hasn’t improved. Its most recent Federal Election Commission filings show the DNC's main fundraising arm has only $12 million in cash but owes nearly $16 million on a recent loan. That's a negative balance sheet going into what should be a critical election cycle. Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee reported $86 million in cash reserves back in September, giving the GOP a massive financial advantage.
Democratic strategist Julian Epstein appeared on Kudlow Friday and didn't leave any ambiguity as to what's happening. Guest host David Asman asked why left-wing billionaires aren't stepping up to rescue the DNC, and Epstein's answer was blunt. "I think what we're seeing with the donor class right now is a lack of confidence, a vote of no confidence in the Democrats," he said.
ICYMI: Things Just Keep Getting Worse for Tim Walz
Epstein laid out exactly why donors are keeping their checkbooks closed. He pointed to what he called a "lie" about Joe Biden's mental fitness, the trainwreck that was Kamala’s campaign, and polling data showing Democrats are wildly out of step with voters on both economic and cultural issues. When your billion-dollar presidential campaign ends in a sweep of losses across every battleground state, people start asking hard questions about competence and strategy.
But here's where it gets interesting.
Epstein argued that the same wealthy donors now withholding their cash are the ones who pushed Democrats so far to the left in the first place.
"The irony here, David, is that the donor class is perhaps the most leftist class of the Democratic Party," Epstein said. "They are the ones driving the Democratic Party to be out of touch. Now they are withholding their money because they don't like the results of sort of the far-left drift."
That's a remarkable admission from a Democratic strategist.
The party's richest supporters funded the ideological shift that's now costing them elections, and they're shocked when voters reject what they've been selling. “So I don’t really know where the Democrats go from here. I’ve argued for a Sister Souljah moment, but I don’t think a lot of people are listening to that,” Epstein said.
The problem for the DNC, of course, is that it went into the recent cycle already at a financial disadvantage, weighed down by lingering liabilities and weak donor enthusiasm. In September, the RNC raised $10.7 million compared to the DNC's $10.3 million, but the real gap showed up in reserves. Republicans had $86 million on hand, while Democrats scraped by with $12 million.
Much of this financial strain ties directly back to Kamala’s failed presidential run, which spent roughly $1.5 billion in just over three months. The DNC paid another $1.6 million in September to settle additional Harris-Walz campaign bills, bringing its total payments for her effort to more than $20 million, according to an analysis from Axios. That's a staggering amount of money to waste on a candidate who couldn't win a single swing state.
The writing is clearly on the wall for Democrats. The party can no longer count on automatic checks from its billionaire base, which creates a serious problem going into 2026. Without reliable funding and with a message that's alienated mainstream voters, the party faces an uphill battle to hold its ground in the midterms.
