Sanders takes lead in California donations
Biden, Buttigieg super PACS get big bucks from tech industry donors; Warren also rakes them in
Sen. Bernie Sanders continued to lead his presidential rivals in donations from Californians last month as he raked in more than $25 million in contributions from around the country, according to campaign finance reports released late Thursday.
But super PACS supporting former Vice President Joe Biden and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg also took in big donations from Bay Area and tech industry donors, with the pro-biden group raising more than $4 million and the probuttigieg group racking up about $800,000.
And the two billionaires in the race, former New York City Michael Bloomberg and former San Francisco hedge fund chief Tom Steyer, continued pumping eye-popping sums into their campaigns — $264 million for Bloomberg and $64 million for Steyer — giving them the ability to dwarf their rivals’ spending in the crucial final sprint to March 3’s Super Tuesday primary.
The fundraising reports — the last that will be released before California’s primary — give voters the best snapshot yet of which contenders will have the resources to compete in the Golden State’s pricey ad markets and pay organizers around the state.
Continuing a monthslong trend, Sanders raised the most money from California donors. His campaign took in $2.8 million in donations of more than $200 from Californians, more than any other contender, according to a Bay Area News Group analysis. Since the majority of Sanders’ donations were less than $200, which don’t need to be reported to the Federal Election Commission, his California total is surely higher.
Sanders was followed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who got $1.2 million in large-dollar California donations, and Biden, who got $816,000.
On the Republican side, President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign raised $378,000 from large-dollar California donors last month.
Among Democrats, no campaign raised a higher percentage of its donations from the Golden State than the last Californian left in the race: About 64% of the amount Steyer raised from individual itemized donors came from Californians, not including himself. California donations made up 23% of Warren’s haul from individual itemized donors and 22.8% of Sanders’.
Notably, Warren ended January with just $2.3 million in the bank, and her campaign took out a line of credit to keep up operations. But with her smashing debate performance in Las Vegas last week, she has raised more than $17 million so far in February, her best month ever, her campaign said.
Several candidates also were boosted by super PACS, independent political action committees that can raise unlimited donations but are barred from coordinating with the politicians they support.
The pro-biden group, Unite the Country, which has spent millions on ads supporting Biden, reported raising $4.1 million in January. The group’s largest donation was $1 million from Richard Blum, the investment banker husband of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who has endorsed Biden. Linkedin co-founder Reid Hoffman, venture capital investor Ron Conway and Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia gave between $100,000 and $500,000 each.
Votevets, a super PAC that backs veterans running for office and has aired ads backing Buttigieg, raised $825,000 in January. That included $100,000 from Swati Mylavarapu, national finance chair of Buttigieg’s
campaign, and her husband, Matt Rogers, the co-founder of smart home company Nest, who live in San Francisco.
The Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan good government group, submitted a complaint with the Federal Election Commission
last week accusing Buttigieg’s campaign of illegally coordinating with the super PAC, alleging that a Buttigieg strategist sent the group a veiled message about what kind of ads to buy in a public tweet. The former mayor’s campaign has declined to comment about the complaint.
Meanwhile, two new super PACS have popped up in the past few days to support Warren and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, but they won’t have to report their donors until after Super Tuesday. EMILY’S List, the PAC that works to elect female candidates, said it gave $250,000 to each group.
The new groups mean that while almost all of the major Democratic candidates started out the campaign disavowing all support from super PACS, that united opposition has crumbled. Accepting help from a super PAC was an especially jarring move for Warren, who has stressed campaign finance issues throughout the race.
“It can’t be the case that a bunch of people keep them and only one or two don’t,” she told reporters Thursday to explain the flip-flop. “If all the candidates want to get rid of super PACS, count me in.”
Still, none of the grassroots donations or the super PACS can match the financial resources controlled by the billionaires in the race.
Bloomberg donated $264 million to his campaign in January, and his campaign spent $221 million, while Steyer donated $64 million and spent $53 million. In total, Bloomberg has given his campaign $464 million so far, while Steyer has given his campaign $267 million.
The two have both spent more of their own money on their campaigns than any other presidential candidates in history, according to an analysis by The New York Times. And Bloomberg already has spent more on TV and radio ads than any other presidential contender, narrowly topping Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign last week, according to the ad tracking firm Advertising Analytics.
Prominent Bay Area tech and financial leaders also made personal contributions to a variety of candidates in January.
Biden got $2,800 from Matthew Cohler, a former Facebook executive who was one of the first five employees at the company and is now a partner at the venture capital firm Benchmark Capital, along with another $2,800 from his wife, Pia.
David desjardins, an early employee of Google who’s now an investor, gave $2,800 to Klobuchar. Sanders picked up $1,000 from Bryan Meehan, the CEO of Blue Bottle Coffee.
And Steyer — who doesn’t exactly need the money — got $2,800 from Laurene Powell Jobs, the philanthropist and investor with the Emerson Collective and the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
He also got $2,800 from Jim Coulter, the co-founder of the investment firm TPG Capital, and another $2,800 from Coulter’s wife, Penny.