Kamala Harris pounces on Vance’s ‘deplorables’ moment with ‘cat ladies’ Zoom events

Vice President Kamala Harris‘s campaign is benefiting from Zoom calls organizing every kind of voting bloc — including one for “childless cat ladies,” a knock at Sen. J.D. Vance‘s (R-OH) recent comments that have drawn ire and donations from Democrats.

Within the week since President Joe Biden dropped out of the election and quickly endorsed Harris, the vice president’s campaign has reenergized the Democrats, raising over $200 million since Sunday and signing up over 170,000 volunteers. Harris’s candidacy has ignited a fundraising storm that spans race, gender, and generations, as well, with several groups hosting Zoom calls that have brought thousands of attendees together to raise money for Harris so far.

Early this week, three groups — White Dudes for Harris, Women for Harris, and Cat and Dog Ladies Unite for Kamala Harris — are holding Zoom calls to raise money for the vice president. The Cat and Dog Ladies Unite for Kamala Harris call comes after comments Vance made in 2021 surfaced about “childless cat ladies” who are “miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they wanna make the rest of the country miserable, too.”

The comments put Vance immediately on defense, less than two weeks after former President Donald Trump picked him as his vice presidential choice at the Republican National Convention. The party originally praised Vance as the future, but now Democrats are celebrating Vance as the “best thing” to happen to them as they look to beat back the GOP in November.

“I’ll bet President Trump is sitting there, scratching his head, and wondering, ‘Why did I pick this guy?’” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a Sunday interview with CBS News’s Face the Nation. “The choice may be one of the best things he ever did for Democrats.”

Harris’s supporters are building on the momentum from Vance’s comments. The Cat and Dog Ladies Unite for Kamala Harris meeting has a big act to follow. Win With Black Women hosted a Zoom call on July 21 that the group said attracted 44,000 attendees and raised more than $1.5 million.

The next day, Win With Black Men hosted a call that an organizer said brought in nearly 54,000 attendees and raised $1.3 million. The latest call, intended for white women who support Harris, was held on Thursday night and, according to an organizer, drew 164,000 participants and raised $2 million.

Republicans like Donald Trump Jr. have been quick on social media to try and diminish the impact of Vance’s comments and ridicule the Zoom organizers.

Other people in Trumpworld are also coming to Vance’s defense for his “childless cat ladies” comments.

“As a new mom, my heart aches for women who are unable to bear children. @JDVance words are being taken out of context and unfairly attacked,” Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt posted on X.

Vance’s comments mirror those made by Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election when she called half of Trump’s supporters a “basket of deplorables.” The Ohio senator’s “childless cat ladies” remarks had both Democrats and Republicans shaking their heads, with Democrats blasting Vance as offensive while some Republicans argue that personal attacks are not the way to win the 2024 election.

“I think these comments by Vance are really the 2024 counterpart of Hillary Clinton’s famous statement in the 2016 election where she called Trump supporters ‘deplorables,’” former national security adviser John Bolton told CNN on Friday.

“I mean, if politicians can’t learn … it’s one thing to attack your opponent. It’s another thing to attack your opponent’s supporters,” Bolton added. “That’s just not a way to win friends and influence people.”

Vance attempted to put out the fire during a Friday appearance on The Megyn Kelly Show. He apologized to cats for his comment but reiterated support for his prior remarks.

“I know the media wants to attack me and wants me to back down on this, Megyn, but the simple point that I made is that having children, becoming a father, becoming a mother, I really do think it changes your perspective in a pretty profound way,” Vance said.

Despite some Republicans souring on the Ohio senator, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung denied reports that Trump is regretting his choice of Vance in a statement.

“President Trump is thrilled with the choice he made with Senator Vance, and they are the perfect team to take back the White House. And any reporting to the contrary is nothing but ridiculous fake news from either nonexistent sources or individuals who have no idea what’s going on,” Cheung said via Newsweek. “Meanwhile, Democrats are in complete disarray after their coup that forcibly removed Biden from the campaign, proving they are the real threats to democracy.”

Republicans are mostly brushing off the energy surrounding Harris as a “honeymoon period,” but Democrats are capitalizing on the fact that the vice president can reignite excitement in key voting blocs such as younger voters and black voters. Harris’s team has also been leaning on the many memes and videos circulating on social media, as well as endorsements from key celebrities and pop stars, as a way to appeal to young voters in a way that Biden, at age 81, could not.

At a Congressional Black Caucus press conference last week, Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) predicted Harris’s candidacy would drive the black vote to numbers higher than Biden saw in 2020.

“I thought that what I saw in 2008 could never be duplicated,” Meeks, who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus’s political action committee, said of former President Barack Obama’s first win. “I thought that interest would fade away. But let me tell you, what we are seeing right now goes farther than what I saw at the beginning of 2008.”