Bloomberg Pursues Wealthy Donors, but Not Their Checkbooks

Bloomberg told the group that he did not want their money and would not accept it if they offered it. What he wanted, he said, was their personal support.

It was the kind of appeal that only a self-funding billionaire could deliver. And indeed, Bloomberg went a step further: If they felt compelled to write a check, he told them to send it to the Democratic National Committee or the progressive group Swing Left.

Bloomberg has made versions of that pitch at several events in recent weeks, in major cities including Los Angeles, Philadelphia and New York. It has unnerved — and sometimes intrigued — supporters of other Democratic candidates, who fear that Bloomberg’s charm offensive could discourage giving to other candidates who lack multibillion-dollar personal fortunes with which to fund their efforts.

And the financial pressure on those other candidates is now great: Former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, left the campaign trail Wednesday night and Thursday morning to raise money in New York, and former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren have been cutting back on their advertising after falling well short of victory in the Iowa caucuses, a development that could make it harder to raise money.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, in turn, announced Thursday that he had raised $25 million in January, a staggering sum. But Sanders is not dependent on the big-money donors whom Bloomberg has been pitching and whom Biden and Buttigieg are dependent on. As a result, Sanders, the most liberal candidate in the race, is now well positioned for a long primary race, especially if major donors heed Bloomberg’s overtures and embrace him over other moderates in the race.

Resembling fundraisers in every aspect but one, Bloomberg’s events are organized under the auspices of a division of the campaign known as the Committee for Mike, a unit that closely resembles the structure of a traditional fundraising operation — except that it does not actually solicit donations.

Unveiled last month, the Committee for Mike was described by the campaign as a network of influencers committed to Bloomberg’s candidacy. Its staff members have asked supporters to speak up for Bloomberg on social media and in personal conversations with their friends and colleagues, especially those who may reside in key primary states and general-election battlegrounds. Among the people managing the operation are former top fundraisers for Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey.

Bloomberg has boasted throughout the campaign that he is immune to the influence of other people’s money, but with his fundraising-style events he is signaling to people accustomed to giving big campaign contributions that he is at least open to their involvement.

“This program seems to be a special way for wealthy supporters to get access and influence that, maybe, the typical voter can only dream of,” said Michael Beckel, the research director for Issue One, a group focused on campaign finance and election reform.

To supporters of other campaigns, this branch of the Bloomberg operation appears to have another effect. By pursuing contributors and asking them to get involved in his candidacy — without actually donating money to him — Bloomberg could have the effect of dampening fundraising for opponents who cannot underwrite their campaigns with personal wealth.

With his overtures, Bloomberg has also been distinguishing himself from Sanders and Warren, who have forsworn traditional political fundraising and described wooing the wealthy behind closed doors as a corrupting practice. Under pressure from Sanders and Warren, Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar began opening their fundraising events to press coverage, and Biden has allowed reporters into his fundraising appearances since the start of his campaign.

Jason Schechter, Bloomberg’s communications director, said the campaign saw the Committee for Mike as an opportunity to mobilize prominent people in support of Bloomberg “across all communities, including leaders of industry, philanthropy, community activism, clergy, arts and sports.”

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The approach comes straight out of Bloomberg’s reelection playbook of 2005, when his team locked down the biggest Democratic donors in New York City by bringing them onto his mayoral campaign as blue-chip endorsers. As he is doing now, he was financing his own campaign. But their support helped wipe some of the most important Democratic financiers from the contributors’ list of his donations-dependent Democratic challenger, Fernando Ferrer.

They also gave Bloomberg, then a Republican in an overwhelmingly Democratic city, the imprimatur of an important segment of the Democratic establishment, which his aides hoped would serve as a permission slip for any rank-and-file Democrats wary of pulling the Republican lever for Bloomberg.

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Bloomberg’s method of cultivating donors in the 2020 campaign was on display this week: On Tuesday, when he visited Philadelphia, Bloomberg hosted a private reception for donors and dignitaries at the National Constitution Center. An invitation was circulated by Giancarlo Stefanoni, a staff member for Bloomberg who was previously Harris’ finance director. His email signature identified him as representing the Committee for Mike.

On the same evening, a day after the Iowa caucuses, the campaign held an invitation-only “State of the Race” call with two of its co-chairs, Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida and Mayor Greg Fischer of Louisville, Kentucky, according to an emailed invitation.

Shanin Specter, a Philadelphia lawyer and Democratic donor who is supporting Biden, speculated that Bloomberg was “looking to dry up support for others” by winning over the check writers they needed.

Bloomberg’s advisers deny that he is deliberately seeking to choke off fundraising for opponents who do not share his limitless financial means. While people who are raising money for other candidates said they had been invited to Bloomberg’s events, no one said Bloomberg’s aides had actively discouraged them from continuing to help other candidates at the same time.

Still, the fear among Bloomberg’s rivals is that the events might convey a clear implicit message to political contributors: Why give thousands of dollars to another candidate when you can have Bloomberg for free?

Fundraising experts say it can be valuable even for a candidate with Bloomberg’s multibillion-dollar fortune to build relationships with political elites, because it can help strengthen a candidate’s legitimacy in the eyes of party leaders and make important people feel invested in the outcome of his or her campaign.

The kind of people who write big checks to campaigns, Beckel said, also tend to be “influential voices in their communities,” and their support or admiration for a candidate can carry weight within their personal and professional networks.

By all appearances, Bloomberg’s campaign has gone to considerable lengths to offer that kind of relationship. He has hired a platoon of full-time fundraisers and deployed them to organize events with Bloomberg and prominent political surrogates — sometimes called “friend-raisers.” They have also arranged conference calls and meetings for elite supporters with members of his staff, including Kevin Sheekey, his campaign manager, and Mitch Stewart, a senior adviser, who have detailed Bloomberg’s approach to the Democratic primary and plans for the general election.

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Some private events have been headlined by Democratic officials supportive of Bloomberg’s campaign, including former Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia and two California mayors, Michael Tubbs of Stockton and Sam Liccardo of San Jose.

In his own appearances, Bloomberg has stressed the importance of defeating President Donald Trump and argued that the best way for Democrats to do that is with a campaign aimed at the political middle. In addition to suggesting donations to the DNC and Swing Left, Bloomberg sometimes recommends giving to Galvanize, another progressive organizing group.

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The persistent outreach has kept Bloomberg’s campaign in contact with Democratic political donors even as other Democrats have scrambled this week to replenish their campaign accounts. On Wednesday, with the outcome of the Iowa caucuses still in doubt, Kimberly Peeler-Allen, a Bloomberg staff member, emailed the Committee for Mike email list to ask recipients to forward a pro-Bloomberg message to their contact lists.

The text of that message took direct aim at the messy start to the Democratic nominating process and offered Bloomberg as a remedy.

“The chaos and confusion of the Iowa caucuses highlighted the importance of ensuring that we nominate the right person — and I believe that person is Mike Bloomberg,” the sample email said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .