Big Obama Donors Stay on Sidelines in 2016 Race Almost four out of five of his 2012 donors haven’t given any money to Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders By Daniel Nasaw
http://www.wsj.com/articles/big-obama-donors-stay-on-sidelines-in-2016-race-1447375429
Almost four-fifths of the people who gave the 2012 maximum $5,000 to the president’s re-election committee hadn’t donated to a presidential candidate by Oct. 1, a Wall Street Journal analysis of federal campaign finance records found.
In interviews ahead of this Saturday’s Democratic debate in Iowa, donors said Mrs. Clinton, the party’s front-runner, hadn’t motivated them to give the way Mr. Obama and previous Democratic candidates had. Still others said they are put off by the larger role of super PACs and that their donations to candidates, which are limited in this election cycle to $5,400 for the eventual nominee, just don’t matter much anymore.
The donors’ reluctance could be a troubling trend for Mrs. Clinton. They are some of the easiest prospective contributors to identify, given that their names are on Mr. Obama’s campaign disclosure reports, and that they’ve already made a habit of cutting checks to politicians.
Julianna Smoot, finance director on President Obama’s 2008 campaign and deputy campaign manager of his re-election effort, said: “Most Democrats will be behind Hillary if she’s the nominee. Once that becomes clear, the rest of that money should be easy for her to get. I do think these folks will be there.”
Mrs. Clinton has outpaced Mr. Obama’s fundraising in the first two quarters of his initial presidential campaign. The former secretary of state has raised $77.5 million for those six months through October. By July 2007, when Mr. Obama had been in the race a comparable length of time, he had raised $58.9 million.
In 2012, roughly 4,000 individuals donated the maximum to Mr. Obama’s campaign committee, delivering $20 million to his account, according to disclosure reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. Of them, about 830 can be identified as having donated to a candidate in the 2016 presidential race. Mrs. Clinton is the largest recipient of their money at $1.8 million. The big Obama donors gave about $109,000 to Mr. Sanders, about $94,000 to former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, and about $70,000 to Republican Jeb Bush.
ENLARGE For the analysis, The Wall Street Journal cross-referenced a list of individuals who had donated the maximum amount to Mr. Obama in 2012 with those who have given to candidates in the current presidential race. The maximum donation total is based on rules that allow a donor to give a candidate up to $2,700 each for the 2016 primary and general election.
Michael Briggs, a spokesman for the campaign of Mr. Sanders, said he expected to be outspent and that “he’s taking on the establishment and does not expect the establishment to support that.” The Clinton campaign’s spokesman, Josh Schwerin, said: “Thanks to the support of hundreds of thousands of people, we have been able to raise a record amount for a nonincumbent during our first two quarters in the race.”
Some people inclined to support Mrs. Clinton note that it is still early in the race and the Republican field remains unsettled. “I don’t think she needs the money right now,” said Jeff Choney, a retired high-school teacher in Wellesley, Mass., who gave $5,000 to Mr. Obama in 2012 and said he may contribute to Mrs. Clinton’s later in the cycle. “I like Bernie Sanders—he speaks the truth on a lot of things. But I don’t think he has a chance of beating her, so I’m not so worried about her campaign.”
Still, the Clinton campaign is building a national campaign apparatus that will be expensive to maintain through the general election, should she win the party nomination. Mr. Obama built a similar operation incrementally during the extended 2007 Democratic primary contest. As of Oct. 1, the last records available to the public, Hillary for America had spent $44.5 million, compared with $14.3 million for Mr. Sanders and $20.1 million for retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, the current fundraising leader in the Republican field.
Mrs. Clinton is also relying on support from super PACs, which can raise and spend unlimited sums as long as they don’t coordinate with her campaign. One of the largest of those, Priorities USA Action, raised $15.7 million as of July.
The limitations of super PACs have been on display in the GOP primary. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker dropped out of the race after struggling to pay campaign expenses that can’t be covered by an outside group.
Though a super PAC backing former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush raised $103.2 million as of July, his campaign in October still had to cut staff salaries and trim the head count at its Miami headquarters.
The super PAC restrictions put pressure on Mrs. Clinton—and all candidates—to raise as much money as they can for their own campaign accounts. Meanwhile, some donors are demoralized witnessing the big checks pouring into super PACs.
“Even though I gave the maximum [in 2012], it’s nothing compared with what these PACs do. I certainly don’t see my contribution as significant,” said Marilynn Duker, president of a Baltimore residential development and property management company. She gave to Mr. Obama’s 2008 campaign and Mr. Kerry in 2004, but has yet to donate to a White House hopeful in this cycle. “It has no real meaning relative to the gazillions of dollars that the PACs contribute to the races these days. I just don’t feel like the individual really makes a difference,” she said.
Doug Curling, an Atlanta-area executive, gave significant sums to Mr. Obama’s campaigns and gave Mrs. Clinton the maximum donation in 2007. But he said he and his wife now plan to contribute to groups advocating for structural change in the political system. “Nobody needs our money,” Mr. Curling said. “I wouldn’t misinterpret it as we’re disenfranchised from our party, it’s more we’re disenfranchised from the system.”
Peter Maroney, who was the Democratic National Committee’s national finance co-chairman in the 2004 presidential campaign, said many Democratic donors had been waiting on Vice President Joe Biden. “Now that the vice president has made his decision, this is an opportunity for candidates like Mrs. Clinton to proactively go after these donors and make them feel that they have a seat at her table,” he said.
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