The week big Biden donors started defecting
Businessman Rick Caruso of Los Angeles is the latest to say he is pausing efforts for Joe Biden as the US President’s widely anticipated TV interview hardens the positions of doubters.
President Biden’s widely anticipated television interview Friday seemed mostly to harden already-forming positions among major Democratic donors – in both directions.
For some doubters, the 22-minute sit-down with Biden, while seen as neither eminently encouraging or disqualifying, did little to undo last week’s debate damage and the concerns it unleashed.
Rick Caruso, a Los Angeles developer, former LA mayoral candidate and Democratic donor who co-hosted a multimillion-dollar fundraiser for Biden in December, said in an interview Saturday he would pause efforts for Biden’s re-election until he can get more clarity.
Caruso said he lost heart with the debate, and Friday’s interview on ABC News didn’t change his position. “The question is not only can you be a viable candidate, but also do you have the ability to be the president of the United States,” Caruso said. On X on Friday, he said stepping aside was the “honourable thing for President Biden to do.” With Biden reiterating his determination Friday to stay in the race, a political game of chicken is taking shape. Some Democrats have said they would withhold support if Biden is the nominee. But if Biden hangs on, those donors might bow to pressure to give once again or feel they will risk aiding former President Donald Trump’s victory by remaining on the sidelines.
The Biden campaign since the June 27 debate debacle is working to avoid a trickle of defectors from turning into a waterfall. In recent days, Democratic supporters such as Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings and Abigail Disney, an heiress to the Disney fortune, said they were halting support until a new nominee was atop the ticket.
Others said they would shift their funding efforts toward House and Senate races, where Democrats are worried the president’s poor showing could affect down-ballot results.
Some held firm for Biden.
“I have been a long-time admirer of the president and continue to support his re-election efforts,” said philanthropist Amy Goldman Fowler in an email Saturday. It said the prior day she made an additional significant contribution; someone familiar with it said it exceeded $US400,000.
Alan Patricof, co-founder of venture-capital firm Primetime Partners and a long-time Biden donor, said Saturday he intends to donate further to Biden’s campaign as the strongest way forward against Trump.
The president in Friday’s interview focused on accomplishments of his first term. He said he didn’t need to take a cognitive test and argued with interviewer George Stephanopoulos over poll results that have consistently shown him several points behind Trump in the general election. Biden avoided any confusing response on par with the debate showing.
“President Biden’s interview tonight showed that his debate performance was, indeed, just a very bad night,” said Michael Kempner, a public-relations executive and donor to the Biden campaign, on Friday. “My concern is that it may be too little too late, and the American public may have already rendered their opinion.” ABC’s interview attracted 8.5 million viewers, according to a preliminary estimate from Nielsen. The CNN debate on June 27 registered 51.3 million viewers across all platforms.
Dmitri Mehlhorn, a Democratic strategist for megadonors, said the interview “confirms why we think he’s a great president.” “The debate did some damage. That interview will stop the bleeding,” said Mehlhorn, whose clients include LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, who has donated more than $US8 million to the Biden campaign.
“We are doubling down financially and personally,” said Mehlhorn. Still, backup scenarios seemed to take shape even as the president insisted only the “Lord almighty” could persuade him to drop out. Some supporters said they still backed him — while also noting they would support Vice President Kamala Harris as the nominee. “If not Biden, Kamala can prosecute the case,” Mehlhorn said after the interview.
One donor, who has collectively donated more than $US3 million with his spouse to support Biden, said Friday’s interview did little to reassure them. The pair still plan to donate but not as much as they had previously expected to, given what they see as a decline in his fitness to serve. Watching the president push back on taking a cognitive test during the interview didn’t help, the person said, asking, “What is he hiding?” Another said he had already given $1 million, but was pausing additional donations until he was convinced the president had “the gas in the tank” to be the nominee. The donor said Biden “performed credibly” during the Friday interview but did little to allay his concerns. “I’m puzzled at this point as to what the right thing to do is.” It is unclear how many top donors, if any number, could be enough to push the president to ultimately withdraw. The Biden campaign has said that nearly all of its donations in the second quarter of 2024 came from contributions less than $200, which campaign officials said is a reflection of Biden’s resilient small-dollar donor base.
The Biden campaign says grassroots fundraising has been strong, pointing to a wave of donations that came in the day of and after his debate with Trump. The Biden campaign has raised more than $US38 million since the day of the debate, a campaign official said, with about $US30 million coming from grassroots donations.
But even if small-dollar donations continue to flow, it is also crucial for the president to keep bigger donors enthusiastic about writing checks for him, the Democratic National Committee and political-action committees that will fund the party’s ground game and advertising through November.
One person familiar with the matter said big-dollar fundraisers the weekend after the debate exceeded campaign goals for amounts raised and attendance.
Minutes after the Friday interview aired, the Biden campaign sent some voters a fundraising email in which the president referenced the sit-down.
“If you still have my back, chip in $25,” it read.
Kristina Peterson, Preetika Rana, Nicholas Miller and Joe Flint contributed to this article.
The Wall Street Journal
