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.
“For me, this really brings questions about the campaign’s finances, how transparent everything has been regarding the 2024 campaign, what has been spent and what are the lessons we need to learn coming from that experience,” said Tim Lim, a D.N.C. member who is set to host a fund-raiser for the party in May.
Kirsten Allen, a senior adviser to Ms. Harris, downplayed the significance of the outlays. “It is standard after a presidential campaign for there to be an extended reconciliation period as outstanding invoices are received, processed and refunds are issued,” she said.
The party chairman, Ken Martin, has said he is prioritizing early investments that will eventually pay dividends, such as in voter registration, sending more money to state parties and expanding the party’s email list.
Rosemary Boeglin, communications director for the D.N.C., said that Democrats had overperformed or won in 90 percent of races since President Trump’s inauguration and that the D.N.C. had “played a part in nearly all of those victories.”
“While Republicans hoard their cash from billionaire megadonors, they’re losing,” she said. “We’ll keep investing and we’ll keep winning, and that includes this year’s midterms.”
Right after the 2024 campaign, Ms. Harris’s team said that there would not be debts reported on her filings after the election.
It was technically true that no debts were disclosed on the next report. But federal records show the D.N.C. itself covered about $22 million in Ms. Harris’s bills after the election, eventually roughly reaching the legal limit for what campaign costs the party can assume.
The New York Times has previously reported that Ms. Harris and the D.N.C. had reached a handshake agreement, where the party paid for 2024 campaign bills and she raised money to offset those costs. Small online donors who were solicited, however, were not told that was the final destination of their dollars.
“Since the campaign ended, the vice president has helped raise millions of dollars for the D.N.C. and candidates nationwide, and heading into the midterms she will expand that effort supporting candidates up and down the ballot,” said Ms. Allen.
Shane Goldmacher is a Times national political correspondent.
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