The vice president's California roots helped her establish years-long relationships with many wealthy liberals. But will they help her win the White House?
She won't have as easy a time of it in the general election, though. She'll need her vast network of billionaire backers that she had established by her run for Senate in 2016 to dig deep to keep the former president from moving back into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
While at least a couple of her previous backers have said they won't donate this time around, she has strong ties with some such as Magic Johnson and Sean Parker. Plus others who didn't make major donations to her earlier campaign are stepping up, including Reid Hoffman, who's already given a super PAC CK backing her $7 million.
Harris's relationship with the Parkers goes back at least a decade. In 2013, while she was California's top law-enforcement official, she attended their wedding at a campground in Big Sur (then-Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom also was a guest), the Washington Post reported. The event allegedly violated rules regarding land use and coastal laws, resulting in the Parkers paying $2.5 million to settle the allegations. It's not clear what Harris might have gifted the couple, but they were quite generous to her subsequent Senate campaign, including donating $100,000 to the super PAC Californians for Opportunity. Parker first gained fame (or infamy, if you're Metallica) when, at 19, he cofounded the music-sharing service Napster. His wealth, however, largely stems from his brief stint as an early president of Facebook.
The final $100,000 contribution in support of Harris's 2016 campaign came from psychologist Cheryl Saban, who also made the donation to Standing Up for California's Middle class. Born in Egypt to Jewish parents, Haim Saban parlayed his success co-creating the “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers” TV show into launching Fox Family Channel, a joint venture with News Corp., before going on to invest in Univision. Saban, who donated $3 million to a super PAC working to elect Hillary Clinton in 2016, was noncommittal about the extent of his support for Harris just after Biden dropped out, telling Variety he was still “digesting it all before I break my silence.” Spokespeople for Saban did not respond to a request for comment.
