Wall Street spent over $74 million to back Joe Biden’s run for president, topping Trump’s haul

People in the securities and investment industry will finish the 2020 election cycle contributing over $74 million to back Joe Biden’s candidacy for president, a much larger sum than what President Donald Trump raised from Wall Street, according to new data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

The sum includes contributions that began in 2019 and continued through the first two weeks of October to Biden’s joint fundraising committees and outside super PACs backing his run. Former Goldman Sachs President Harvey Schwartz gave $100,000 this month to the Biden Action Fund, a joint fundraising committee for the campaign, the Democratic National Committee and state parties.

Biden also received a ton of financial support from leaders on Wall Street in the third quarter. Going into the final two weeks of the election, Biden, the DNC and their joint fundraising committees had over $330 million on hand. That’s $110 million more than for Trump, the Republican National Committee and their joint committees. Biden’s campaign is on track to raise $1 billion in the six days until Election Day.

Leaders of Biden’s campaign have been encouraging leaders on Wall Street to support the former vice president’s run since the start of the primary season.

Biden’s campaign chairman, Steve Ricchetti, met with finance executives in January to encourage them to back his candidate, CNBC reported at the time. Attendees included Evercore founder Roger Altman, longtime investor Blair Effron, Blackstone Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Gray, former Citigroup executive Ray McGuire, Centerbridge Partners co-founder Mark Gallogly, and former U.S. Ambassador to France Jane Hartley.

Most of these people ended up backing Biden either by hosting fundraising events or donating to his cause.

Data from CRP shows that outside groups backing Biden received big money support from executives at hedge fund Paloma Partners and people with ties to investment firm Renaissance Technologies. The latter’s founder, Jim Simons, gave at least $7 million to two super PACs supporting Biden since Super Tuesday in March, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Simons also gave over $350,000 to the Biden Action Fund in June.

Henry Laufer, who was the Renaissance chief scientist and vice president of research, gave $625,000 in June to the American Bridge PAC. Donald Sussman, founder of Paloma Partners, finished the 2020 cycle giving at least $9 million to various Biden super PACs.

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/28/wall-street-spends-74-million-to-support-joe-biden.html