Kamala Harris
Senate Intelligence Committee member Sen. Kamala Harris (D-California) questions witnesses from the Trump Administration Justice Department and intelligence officials during a hearing in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., June 7, 2017. Getty Images

Freshman U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of California has already done what few politicians can: She’s raised a significant amount of money from small donors. From Election Day through the first quarter of 2017, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, Harris took in $1.6 million, with an average donation of just $19, less than the average $27 contribution that made populist Bernie Sanders proud during last year’s presidential primary election. She’s doled out $600,000 to her fellow Democratic senators, some of whom will face tough challenges next year, and written fundraising emails for progressive advocacy group MoveOn.org.

But last weekend, amid speculation of a potential 2020 presidential run, Harris met with wealthy, Democratic mega-donors in Long Island beach town of Bridgehampton. Harris, whose sharp Senate interrogations of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, former FBI director James Comey and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein were widely praised, is seen as one of the party’s most promising candidates and fundraisers. On Saturday, Harris was treated to a meet-and-greet with a cohort of top Hillary Clinton donors, hosted at the home of Michael Kempner, a lead fundraiser for the presidential campaigns of both Clinton and Barack Obama.

Here are some of the big donors who reportedly attended that event or other meetings.

  • Kempner, formerly a lobbyist and deputy national finance chair of the DNC, is now CEO of public relations and lobbying firm MWWPR, which counts big businesses such as Tyson Foods and Subaru among its clients. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Kempner has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democratic groups, parties and candidates, as well as to outside groups, including over $115,000 to the pro-Clinton super PAC Correct the Record from 2015 to 2016. In 2012, Kempner was one of Obama’s top bundlers, delivering $3 million to the candidate.
  • Retired broker Margo Alexander, a member of Clinton’s inner circle who hosted fundraisers for her, has given maximum donations to the DNC and hundreds of thousands of dollars to politics.
  • Battery Park City Authority chairman Dennis Mehiel has given over $230,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee since 2001; over $210,000 to the DNC since 1996; $125,000 to Correct the Record; $82,500 to the Senate Majority PAC; and $20,500 to the Ready for Hillary super PAC in 2013.
  • Designer Steven Gambrel, another attendee at the Kempner event, has given more than $20,000 in total to Democratic party committees and the campaigns of Clinton, Obama and other high-profile Democrats.
  • Robert Zimmerman, one of the donors mentioned in the Page Six article, co-founder of public relations and marketing firm Zimmerman/Edelson and a member of the DNC, bundled between $200,000 and $500,000 for Obama’s 2012 campaign and has personally given thousands to Democratic campaigns.
  • D.C. lobbyist Liz Robbins hosted a lunch for Harris. Robbins is CEO of Liz Robbins Associates, which currently represents Chobani Yogurt and Madison Square Garden and formerly represented General Electric, Scholastic and the Motion Picture Association of America. She is a major Democratic Party donor, having bundled over $700,000 for Clinton’s 2016 campaign. In the 2015 to 2016 election cycle, she made over $64,000 in personal political contributions, mostly to Democrats, a significant increase from the previous two cycles, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

In March, Harris established a gubernatorial campaign in California for 2026, but a spokesperson explained that the committee is simply a mechanism for storing roughly $1 million left over from her 2014 attorney general campaign. Harris has not indicated plans to run for president in 2020.

As the Democratic presidential field begins to assemble, Harris is a bit of a wild card, likely more progressive than some potential candidates such as Andrew Cuomo or Cory Booker. If she cozies up to major Democratic establishment donors — and their agenda — she’ll risk alienating the Sanders-aligned wing of the Democratic Party, which promotes policies more progressive than those of the Clinton-Obama coalition and favors small donations over Big Money from political mega-donors.

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