HERE ARE THE BILLIONAIRES BACKING JOE BIDEN'S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN
(May 6, 2020)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2020/05/06/here-are-the-billionaires-backing-joe-bidens-presidential-campaign/
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After the first week in March, billionaires looking to support a Democratic candidate for president had essentially two options: Bernie Sanders, the candidate who said, “Billionaires should not exist,” and Joe Biden. They chose Biden. And as the country shut down amid the coronavirus pandemic, Forbes found that more billionaire donors opened their wallets for Biden in March than in any previous month of his campaign.
Thirty-two billionaires and their spouses gave to Biden’s campaign in March, including 27 who donated to Biden for the first time, according to a Forbes analysis of the latest Federal Election Commission filings.
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Thirty-eight percent of Biden’s donors got rich in finance—among them ten hedge fund tycoons and six private equity barons. Eleven percent made their money in tech, including Quibi chief executive Meg Whitman and former Google chairman Eric Schmidt. One billionaire, George Kaiser, whose fortune stems from stakes in oil and gas, as well as banking, had his contribution returned, according to a Biden campaign spokesperson, because the campaign is not accepting contributions from fossil fuel executives.
How Joe Biden's Donors Got Rich
Forbes found that 94 billionaires and their spouses have donated to Biden’s presidential campaign committee. Their fortunes stem from 12 industries.
Just over one fifth inherited their wealth, including three Pritzker heirs to the Hyatt hotel fortune, Cox Enterprises scion Katharine Rayner and former presidential candidate Ross Perot’s widow, Margot Birmingham Perot. Margot Perot contributed $1,000 to the Biden campaign in February. (Her son, H. Ross Perot Jr. who is also a billionaire, has contributed $85,000 to committees supporting Trump.)
Before Biden became the presumptive Democratic nominee, his campaign already had big billionaire support. Forbes found that moderate Kamala Harris, with 46 donors, initially had the most billionaire donors, according to FEC filings. Others, like Cory Booker and Pete Buttigieg, also attracted dozens of billionaire supporters. Now many of those donors appear to be coalescing around Biden.
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Then there are super-PACs, groups technically separate from campaigns that can nonetheless support a particular candidate—and accept unlimited amounts of money. Many of Biden’s richest supporters are already making six- and seven-figure donations to super-PACs supporting the former vice president’s campaign, including Unite The Country, which has spent $12.1 million on pro-Biden advertising so far, according to the latest public filings. Donors include LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, hedge funder Jim Simons and film producer Sidney Kimmel.
Methodology
Forbes looked for donations from those who appeared as part of the 614 American billionaires on the 2020 World’s Billionaires list published April 7, 2020, and all of their publicly identifiable spouses. We used that list to search Federal Election Commission filings, which show donations to candidate committees. We counted individual itemized contributions made in increments of at least $100 to the Biden For President campaign committee, then reviewed addresses and employment information to confirm identities. For this analysis we did not count donors who have only given to super-PACs. It’s possible some contributions have been returned since the close of the reporting period. We reached out to every person we found to get their feedback. It’s possible we missed someone. We’ll continue searching through the 2020 election.