You live, you learn.
Finger-pointing has erupted over the Kamala Harris campaign blowing up to $20 million on swing-state concerts Monday night, hours before the VP’s spectacular election loss to Donald Trump — prompting concern that everyday staff and vendors won’t get paid amid reports the campaign is in debt by the same amount.
Members of the defeated Harris team tell The Post that the concerts had a ruinous effect on the Democratic campaign’s coffers and that fact was no secret — with one planned performance by ’90s alt-rock goddess Alanis Morissette getting scrapped to save money.
The seven swing-state concerts on election eve featured performances by Jon Bon Jovi in Detroit, Christina Aguilera in Las Vegas, Katy Perry in Pittsburgh and Lady Gaga in Philadelphia — with 2 Chainz joining Harris on Nov. 2, three days before the election, for an eighth concert in Atlanta.
Two sources said that Obama campaign alum Stephanie Cutter pushed the concert concept as a way to woo lower-propensity voters to the polls.
While the performers donated their time and talent, the sets still required an immense commitment of manpower and financial resources.
Cutter’s plan was supported by fellow Obama alum David Plouffe, one source said.
Harris added Cutter and Plouffe to her campaign shortly after replacing President Biden atop the party’s ticket in July, generating internal tensions with the existing Biden campaign team as the newcomers sought to replay the 44th president’s successful 2008 campaign.
Harris-Walz campaign chairwoman Jen O’Malley Dillon ultimately approved the get-out-the-vote concert plans, but has since told colleagues — in response to significant internal criticism — that she didn’t want to do them and sat on the idea for weeks, one source told The Post.
If that was the case, another source pointed out, then O’Malley Dillon’s waffling led to increased production costs because “putting [concerts] together last minute makes [them] cost twice as much.”
Internal critics also questioned the role of campaign operations chief Dana Rosenzweig, whom one source noted controlled the Harris-Walz purse strings and was responsible for raising any financial concerns.
“They said they were ‘spending to zero.’ I guess they overshot zero,” quipped one source.
As it happened, the events hardly made a splash in the news cycle — with the exception of the Philadelphia rally, where Oprah Winfrey stole the show by claiming that Trump winning might mean “we will not have the opportunity to cast a ballot again.”
Voters in each of the seven swing states turned out the next day to elect Trump, the former president and Republican nominee.
“They had huge advance teams for these concerts, like 40-60 people in some cities,” said an insider who told The Post that they are concerned about the financial impact on people who worked to elect Harris.
“I’m sure vendors will start to get upset soon,” the source added, noting that staff payments do not seem to be impacted so far, though expense reimbursements are still pending.
In the week before Election Day, as campaign bosses became aware that nearly all of their more than $1 billion war chest was gone, there were efforts to scale back concert costs — which were expected to run between $15 million and $20 million, but in some cases experienced overruns.
“They definitely knew the budget crunch at the end because they cut talent from some cities because of cost,” the source said, adding that Morissette’s show got the ax just two days before the scheduled performance.
A different Harris campaign source said that finance staff currently are in the process of reconciling the balance sheets and that nobody has been stiffed.
A third source called the events “a real misuse of funds that could have been better spent on ads laying out economic policies” to voters angered about inflation and high interest rates.
“It didn’t matter to have a bunch of celebrities talking to no one because one, 75 million people already voted and two, people were concerned about their own financial issues, not Oprah telling them America won’t exist,” this source said.
Despite the enormous fundraising haul in the 107-day campaign spring, the Harris campaign ended the race at least $20 million in debt, Politico reported Thursday. Donation webpages remain active in the apparent hope of an after-the-fact trickle of funds to close the gap.
Spokespeople for the Harris campaign and Morissette did not respond to The Post’s requests for comment.
