Top Democratic donors helped end Joe Biden’s re-election bid in the past weeks by publicly and privately calling on him to stand aside, and threatening to pull their funds.
In the hours after he withdrew from the campaign, some of the party’s highest-profile backers promptly threw their weight behind Kamala Harris. Others pointedly did not.
Harris is the “right person at the right time” and well-positioned to “push back” against Donald Trump, according to Reid Hoffman, the tech billionaire who co-founded LinkedIn. Alexander Soros, son of financier and philanthropist George Soros, described her as the “best and most qualified candidate we have”.
Hoffman and Soros had been vocal in their support of Biden in recent weeks, even as calls grew from him to exit the race.
But Reed Hastings, the Netflix co-founder and Democratic mega-donor, was among those who urged the president to stand down. On Sunday, he said only that party delegates “need to pick a swing-state winner”.
Vinod Khosla, the entrepreneur and investor, went further. “I want an open process at the convention and not a coronation,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “The key still is who can best beat Trump above all other priorities.”
John Morgan, a Florida lawyer and Biden donor, said he would not fundraise for the Harris campaign, telling ABC News: “If Trump World could pick anybody to run against, I think they pick her.”
Within Biden’s inner circle, there is clear anger at the backers who turned on him. Ron Klain, a trusted adviser to the president who served as his White House chief of staff, wrote on Sunday that “the donors and electeds” had “pushed out the only candidate who has ever beaten Trump”.
Stephen Cozen, a veteran Democratic donor and Biden supporter, said he was “100% behind” Harris, and added that the party’s nominee should not be decided by “some high-profile donors, who may or may not have good or bad intentions”.
In an interview with the Guardian, Cozen dismissed calls for an open primary. “It’s some utopian dream that some people may have,” he said. “But it’s unrealistic. It’s not reality.
“The reality is, if we start coalescing around [Harris] tomorrow, and she picks a really good person to be her running mate, and the money starts coming in again, and we start some good attacks on Trump and the Magas and Project 2025, we’ll win. There’s no question we will win.”
As Harris commenced her run for president, she received an early boost from two key forces in Democratic fundraising. Emily’s List praised the vice-president as a “tireless advocate for our most fundamental freedoms, including abortion and voting rights”, while Way to Win declared it would “do all we can” to support her.
“President Biden has looked at all the data, and he has endorsed Kamala Harris, which means he’s making a plan based on real data,” Tory Gavito, president of Way to Win, told the Guardian. “It shows us that there’s a path to recreate the anti-Maga coalition and win. So now it’s everybody’s job to go work on that path.”
Biden’s exit appeared to prompt a flood of cash from smaller donors. In a statement on Monday morning, Lauren Hitt, a campaign spokeswoman, said it had received $49.6m in grassroots donations since the president endorsed Harris. Sunday was the party’s biggest fundraising day of the 2024 cycle so far, according to ActBlue, a top platform for Democratic fundraising.
Biden’s campaign swiftly regenerated, changing its name to Harris for President in a Federal Election Commission filing. Those seeking to drum up support for the vice-president’s run claimed they were inundated with messages from potential donors.
“My phone blew up. I can’t even keep up with it,” said Alexandra Acker-Lyons, a Democratic donor and adviser, who described “overwhelming excitement for Kamala”.
As allies of Harris seek to shore up the finances needed to fuel her campaign for the presidency, her supporters also praised Biden, and his agreement to relinquish it. “I’m proud of him,” Cozen said. “I’m sad. He had more to give us.”
“This is an incredibly brave and selfless act,” said Acker-Lyons.
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