A live video call featuring a host of celebrities, including Mark Hamill from Star Wars and singer Josh Groban, aimed at encouraging white men to support Kamala Harris raised approximately $4 million on Monday evening. The event, titled 'White Dudes for Harris,' attracted over 190,000 viewers and ran for more than three hours, focusing on the importance of white men voting for Harris, the current vice president, in the upcoming November 5 presidential election against Republican candidate Donald Trump.
According to Ross Morales Rocketto, the founder of 'Run for Something' and an organizer of the event, Trump secured over 60% of the white male vote in both the 2016 and 2020 elections. Mitch Landrieu, a co-chair of the Harris campaign, emphasized during the call the role of white men in supporting and uplifting others, stating, 'If we would stand up and be counted, if we would talk about what it really means to be a great partner, and a man, which is to protect, and to help, and to lift up, and to not push down, all of us are going to be better for it.'
The call was part of a series of video events for Harris that have drawn large crowds and significant funds, inspired by a similar event held by Black women the night Joe Biden withdrew from the race and endorsed Harris. Other notable participants included Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, actor Jeff Bridges, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker. Actor Bradley Whitford humorously remarked on the diversity of the participants, saying, 'We got The Dude. We got Pete (Buttigieg). It's like a rainbow of, uh, beige.'
The speakers highlighted the benefits of white men supporting rights, particularly reproductive rights for women, which is a major campaign issue for Harris and the Democrats. Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, and filmmaker J.J. Abrams pledged to match $50,000 in donations raised during the call, leading to over 60,000 individual contributions, according to Morales Rocketto. Actor Josh Gad urged viewers to 'Smash that donate button.' Previous calls for Black women and Black men attracted over 40,000 and 50,000 participants respectively, while a call for white women drew over 200,000 and raised more than $11 million.
