Tiny fundraisers are big for Clinton
WASHINGTON — A single elevator could have accommodated the donors who recently gathered with Hillary Clinton at the Pritzker family home in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood. Small in number, the group was big in largesse, contributing at least $1 million to help elect her and other Democrats this fall. It would have taken a 37,000seat stadium of Bernie Sanders fans each chipping in the campaign’s self-described average donation of $27 to raise that much money.
In her bid for the White House, Clinton is using every fundraising technique at her disposal, including salon-style gatherings with elite donors. Alongside small-donor efforts like email marketing and happy hours for young professionals, these intimate events are helping Clinton collect as much as $1 billion to battle Republican Donald Trump.
Clinton’s micro-fundraisers have landed big money: At least $19.5 million has flowed from 16 of them over the past two months, according to an Associated Press review.
But they also may open her up to criticism. Like her Democratic opponent Sanders, Trump eagerly depicts Clinton as bought and paid for by her wealthy contributors. “The people who rigged the system are supporting Hillary Clinton because they know as long as she is in charge nothing’s going to change,” Trump told employees of an aluminum scrap metal factory in Monessen, Pa., earlier this week.
And as Clinton works to win over her party’s liberals after a divisive primary, the events may undercut her argument that she would be a strong proponent of campaign finance reform. Clinton says Democrats cannot unilaterally disarm in the midst of a tough presidential election, but that if elected she’d work to reduce big money in politics — a line President Barack Obama also used.
Both Clinton and Trump can solicit checks of $350,000 or more from a single donor thanks in part to a 2014 Supreme Court ruling that lifted an overall per-person cap on political contributions. That’s roughly triple what the individual donor limit was in 2012.
The resulting money flow could help the presidential candidates build robust on-the-ground voter contact and turnout operations, and pay for costly advertising. That is in addition to money that can be raised by super PACs. Those groups cannot directly coordinate their spending with the candidates and face no contribution limits whatsoever.
Clinton has made high-dollar fundraisers a staple of her campaign financing plan, frequently pairing a small pricey event with a larger one that has a lower entry fee.