24 newyork| december9–22, 2019
dollars into Democratic politics in the past decade or so—
money it now looks like they will use on themselves. Obama
tried to calm everyone down, first reminding a few hundred
leading donors and strategists at a conference in D.C.,
“Whoever emerges from the primary process, I will work
my tail off to make sure they are the next president.” When
the coverage of that speech focused instead on his warning
that the candidates shouldn’t veer too far left, he tried again,
at a smaller fund-raiser outside San Francisco the next
week. “Everybody needs to chill about the candidates,” he
told the second crowd.
Elizabeth Warren, in particular, has occupied a unique
space in Wall Street Democrats’ collective mind, in part
becauseofherobviousgainswheneveroneofthem has
picked a fight with her; she started selling billionaire
tears mugs around the time former Goldman Sachs CEO
Lloyd Blankfein griped on Twitter about being included in
one of her ads. When Mother Jones reported that Barclays
had recently warned clients that a Warren presidency would
hurt Swiss banks, she responded on Twitter, “Fine by me.”
Bloomberg had been watching all this closely, and his
inner circle ramped up its outreach to some Wall Street
allies in the weeks before he made his 2020 intentions pub-
lic. He was fully aware of the support he had from fellow
magnates (even Jeff Bezos had encouraged him to run ear-
lier this year), and now his longtime political strategist
Kevin Sheekey and others on his team met with a handful
of financial-industry operators to preview the run and their
strategy, which is based largely on Biden’s losing steam,
Buttigieg’s proving to be a weak option, and the race turn-
ing into a Bloomberg-vs.-Warren contest next spring,
according to those briefed. Once the campaign launched,
though, they felt no need to set up any formal system of
communication with even those bankers and investors with
decades of experience giving to presidential campaigns—a
sharp contrast to Biden and Buttigieg and basically every
other mainstream campaign in recent history.
It turned out to be finance types that, before long, had the
most questions: about how Bloomberg was going to avoid
just siphoning support from Biden and handing the race to
Warren, or how his late entry wouldn’t at the very least
ensure a messy, drawn-out nominating process.
And when Bloomberg’s bid lined up with a rough patch
of polling for Warren, it made their fears of her running
away with the nomination feel ancient and the rationale for
his candidacy look less obvious. “We’re a long way from a
few weeks ago, when the mood was ‘Elizabeth Warren is the
nominee; we’re fucked. I can’t support this party anymore,’ ”
explained a financial-industry pro close to both the Bloom-
berg and Biden teams. Biden set about ignoring Bloomberg
in public while other candidates tried raising grassroots
money off his entry. Behind the scenes, though, Biden’s
fund-raising team insisted to donors that the former VP
had found his footing in the race.
Bloomberg, however, isn’t much interested in what his
old friends have to say. (“He literally has nothing to lose,” one
associate said, “except maybe his reputation.”) He’s on pace
to smash all campaign-spending records, and his ads are
inescapable. But the ads’ content has let some Democrats
exhale. Far from knocking down his primary opponents, the
first of them focused on Trump. If Bloomberg’s unmatched
cash is going to be devoted to launching the general election
and ripping down Trump early, that will be hard even for
Bloomberg’s rivals to complain about. ■to beat Donald Trump. The former mayor wouldn’t take
his wealthy friends’ money, but his candidacy might be
reason enough for some of them to hold off on funding
others—a possibility that Biden, struggling for cash, could
hardly afford. Bloomberg, worth more than $54 billion
according to Forbes, had essentially unlimited funds. He’d
considered spending $1 billion on an independent bid in
2016, before abandoning the idea and returning to his role
as one of the Democrats’ biggest donors. And now he was
surprising not just the Democratic Party Establishment—
he didn’t even give Barack Obama a heads-up and called
DNC chair Tom Perez after the fact, according to opera-
tives in the know—but also the Wall Street Establishment.
Atfirst, someofthecallsfromBiden’s allieswenttovoice-
mail that Thursday night. Some donors told Biden World
they needed time to think.
From the outside, Bloomberg looks to be off to a fast
start. In just a few weeks, he has already reached 5 percent
inmultiplepollsonthebackofmorethan$60millionin
adspending—whichis morethannearlytheentirefieldof
candidateshasspentallyearlong.Butinreality, Team
Biden’s concernsmighthavebeenmisplaced:It may just
turnout,counterintuitively,that Bloomberg’s enteringthe
racewillservetosolidify donorsupport aroundBiden.“For
a littlewhile—fora week—thereweresomepeoplewho
said,‘OhmyGod,he’s in!My dreamcometrue!We’rewith
him!,’” saysoneBloombergallyinprivateequity who’s now
backingBiden.“Thenreality set in.”
Attheveryleast, Bloomberg’s entry hascoincidedwitha
goodfew weeksfinanciallyforthefront-runner. OnTues-
daynight,BidenduckedawayfromhisongoingIowabus
tourfora pairoffund-raisingreceptionsinNewYork.At
thefirst, a 70-persongatheringhostedinpart bybigfinance
nameslikeThomasH.Lee,AlanPatricof,CharlesMyers,
andVincentMaiat thehomeofart dealerArneGlimcher,
Bidenstoodundera Caldermobileashespoke.(“Don’t
touchtheRothko!,” Patricofwarnedaboutthehangingcan-
vases.)Thecandidatewasbuoyant.Justa day earlier, his
campaignmanager, GregSchultz,hadcirculatedaninter-
nalmemo,whichwasthenforwardedastalking-point
guidancetosupportivefund-raisers,revealingthat the
campaignhadbroughtin“asmuchmoneyinthefirsttwo
monthsofthisquarterasweraisedintheWHOLEthird
quarter,” accordingtoa copyobtainedbyNewYork.“The
resourcesareimportant,” Schultzwrote,“butthetiming
reallycouldn’t bebetter.”Thenextday, KamalaHarris—
anotherdonorfavorite—droppedoutoftherace.
It’sbeena disorientingstretchfora groupofdonorswho
hadspentmonthsfranticallytryingtofindtherightcandi-
dateafterBloombergfirstsaidhewouldn’t runinMarch.
Many bigdonorsweresettlingonBidenandButtigieg.But
formerMassachusettsgovernorDevalPatrick,whoentered
theraceinNovember,almost immediatelystartedsetting
upManhattanmeetings,includingoneat theofficeof
AdventCapitalManagementpresidentTracyMaitland.
Thepast fourweekshaveleft many DemocratsonWall
Streetwhoareaccustomedtoa measureof controloverthe
primaryprocessat anuncharacteristicloss.Theirconun-
drum:Bloomberg’s runmay notbetheanswertotheir
prayersthat they expectedittobe.Mostofthemlike
Bloombergplenty, buthedoesn’t needorwanttheirhelp.
Theparty,morebroadly, hasbeenunnervedbythebil-
lionaireentrantsscramblingthefield.TomSteyerand
Bloombergcombinedhaveplowednearlyhalfa billion
intelligencer
Money in
PoliticsAccording to
reports from
nonpartisan
Advertising
Analytics,
the top-five ad
spenders
among the
2020
candidates
so far:
bloomberg
$64 million
steyer
$60 million
trump
$19 million
buttigieg
$15 million
sanders
$14 million