‘White Dudes for Harris’ raises $4.2 million during star-studded Zoom call joined by nearly 200,000 people, including Pete Buttigieg, Mark Hamill and ‘the Dude’ himself
A group of men calling themselves “White Dudes for Harris” held a marathon zoom call on Monday night to rally support and raise money for Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
According to organizers, more than 190,000 people joined the three-and-a-half hour virtual rally, raising over $4.2 million for the Harris campaign.
The event was inspired by a Zoom call organized by the group “Win With Black Women,” which drew over 40,000 people and raised more than $1 million for Harris hours after President Biden dropped his bid for reelection and endorsed her. Numerous identity focused zoom calls have popped up for Harris.
What happened on the ‘White Dudes’ call
One by one, speakers on the “White Dudes for Harris” Zoom rally shared personal stories about why they are supporting Harris who, were she to win in November, would be the first non-”dude” ever in the Oval Office.
Among them: potential vice presidential candidates (Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker), Hollywood actors (Sean Astin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mark Hamill), singers (Lance Bass and Josh Groban) and even the Dude himself, Jeff Bridges, who starred as Jeffrey “the Dude” Lebowski in the Coen Brothers’s 1998 cult-classic film The Big Lebowski.
“I qualify, man: I’m white, I’m a dude and I’m for Harris,” Bridges said, speaking from what appeared to be his garage. “I think Joe has passed the baton so beautifully, and Kamala is so certainly our girl. I can see her being president; I’m so excited. A woman president — man, how exciting!”
Addressing this convening of dudes after ‘the Dude’ is definitely one of the honors of my life,” the transportation secretary joked before tackling the issue at hand.
Donald Trump’s unfitness for office is clear and no one is better positioned to prosecute that case than Kamala Harris,” Buttigieg, who is on the shortlist of her potential running mates, said. “And you can see his campaign is flailing, he’s reverting to his worst instincts — his choice of running mate in JD Vance — you can see he’s doubling down on the worst of it, from his anti-women rhetoric to this deep entanglement with Project 2025.”
Buttigieg said that Harris’s entrance into the race has generated excitement among Democrats, and while he is reluctant to acknowledge “vibes” in a campaign, even he can admit “the vibes right now are incredible.”
Other ‘white dudes’ on the call castigated Trump and Vance
“I hear JD Vance trying to talk about what a small town is,” Walz said. “There’s one golden rule for those of you like me from a small town: Mind your own damn business.”
Walz then turned his attention to Trump, and encouraged those on the call to rhetorically “shrink” the former president when campaigning for Harris.
“Is he a danger to society? Yes. Is he a danger to women’s health? Yes. Is he a danger to world peace? Yes,” Walz said. “But don’t give him more credit than he needs. He’s just a strange, weird dude.”
Organizers responded to criticism
At the top of the call, “White Dudes for Harris” organizer Ross Morales Rocketto said he wanted to address what he called the “elephant in the room”: criticism surrounding an event organized for white men given the country’s history of racism.
“A lot of people felt uncomfortable about the call,” he said. “Throughout American history, when white men organized it was often with pointy hats on. And so I think the discomfort, the skepticism is understandable.”
But Rocketto said that he felt the need to rally white men — a demographic that Trump has won more than 60% support from in the last two presidential elections — and reclaim them for Harris.
“The left has ceded men to the MAGA right for way too long,” he said. “And that’s going to stop tonight.”
Peoplesmind
