Elizabeth Warren’s Wealthy Donor Funding Spotlighted In ‘New York Times’ Report
In a recent report for The New York Times, Shane Goldmacher highlighted how Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren received money from wealthy donors for years through fundraisers and is using $10.4 million from her 2018 Senate campaign to underwrite her 2020 run. According to Goldmacher, this is the “open secret” of Warren’s anti-establishment campaign, which touts its grassroots support but often gets criticized by some skeptics as less genuine than the small-donor support from campaigns such as Bernie Sanders or Andrew Yang. Warren is now in second in the polls behind front-runner Joe Biden.
“The open secret of Ms. Warren’s campaign is that her big-money fund-raising through 2018 helped lay the foundation for her anti-big-money run for the presidency,” he wrote, highlighting that some money was raised from the same donor class her campaign takes aim at.
Yet, Warren supporters claim that her campaign shouldn’t be faulted for trying to challenge the current power structure and trying to “change the system” without taking “every step possible” simultaneously. The 70-year-old United States Senator’s decision to forgo fundraisers in the primary has lost her some support — her finance director and another top fundraising official resigned after the decision. However, Warren claims she will return to big-money fundraisers if she wins the nomination.
NEW: Elizabeth Warren’s campaign touts that it is “100% grass-roots funded.”
Yet she seeded her 2020 bid with $10.4 million in Senate funds — raised while wooing big donors.
My story on that old courtship and how important that $$$ has been:https://t.co/QgmXHFhsCs
— Shane Goldmacher (@ShaneGoldmacher) September 9, 2019
Warren attended the New Hampshire Democratic Party convention Saturday along with 18 other Democratic presidential candidates to speak to party activists about why she believes she is one to take down Donald Trump and take the reins for America. Per The Boston Globe, Elizabeth Warren — who The Inquisitr reported is inching toward Biden in the battle for delegates — received the “biggest reception of any candidate” and received a two-minute standing ovation before speaking.
Niko House, a political commentator and one of fellow Democratic candidate Tulsi Gabbard’s biggest fundraisers, used his podcast on YouTube to suggest that Warren manufactured the grassroots reception. He also highlighted a portion of The Globe article that suggests Warren’s campaign “paid for hundreds of tickets” for her supporters and gave them thundersticks.
“Do you think if you’re gonna say how big of a standing ovation a particular candidate got, how much support they had when they walked into the building, the two minute — the two minute! — standing ovation, maybe you should preface that statement with ‘Oh by the way she paid for all of that support.'”
“How is that genuine support?” he asked.
House’s comments continue to shed doubt on how grassroots Warren’s rising campaign is, although it should be noted that it’s unclear how much money other campaigns invested to bring their supporters to the New Hampshire event.
