Shane Goldmacher

“I was wrong,” Bloomberg declared. “And I am sorry.”

The speech, Bloomberg’s first since he reemerged as a possible presidential candidate, was a remarkable concession by a 77-year-old billionaire not known for self-doubt: that a pillar of his 12-year mayoralty was a mistake that he now regrets. It was also, in some ways, a last word on an era of aggressive policing in New York City that began a generation ago under former Mayor Rudy Giuliani — though the fallout on neighborhoods is still felt to this day.

Speaking before the congregation at the Christian Cultural Center, a black megachurch in Brooklyn, Bloomberg delivered his apology in the heart of one of the communities most affected by his policing policies and at a location that nodded to the fact that, should he decide to run for president, African American voters would be a crucial Democratic constituency that he would need to win over.

Bloomberg’s policing record negatively impacted huge swaths of people of color across New York, so much so that his support for “stop and frisk” is seen as one of his biggest potential vulnerabilities in 2020. During his 12-year tenure, there were millions of street stops heavily targeting black and brown young men. Few Democrats have such an indelible record on race, in a party where black voters helped determine the winners of the last two contested presidential primaries, Barack Obama in 2008 and Hillary Clinton in 2016.

It is almost unheard-of for a former chief executive to renounce and apologize for a signature policy that helped define a political legacy. Even for a politician as dexterous as Bloomberg — who ran first as a Republican, then as an independent and now, possibly, as a Democrat — the reversal left his longtime observers astonished.

Until Sunday, Bloomberg had steadfastly — and his critics say stubbornly — defended stop-and-frisk, mocking only a few months ago the very notion of undertaking an “apology tour” for his broader record. Bloomberg stood behind the program, which gave New York police officers sweeping authority to stop and search anyone they suspected of a crime even after a federal judge ruled in 2013 that it violated the constitutional rights of minorities.

Though Bloomberg has now distanced himself, the policing approach has another prominent champion in President Donald Trump, who called for it to be used nationwide in 2016 and praised the tactics again last year.

Proudly technocratic and data-driven, Bloomberg had resisted acknowledging what the numbers showed so starkly: First, that Latinos and blacks were disproportionately stopped, though only a tiny fraction had weapons. Second, even when stops were phased out toward the end of his administration and then decreased sharply under his successor, Mayor Bill de Blasio, crime rates continued to plunge to new lows unseen since the 1950s.

“I now see that we should have acted sooner, and acted faster,” Bloomberg said Sunday.

De Blasio, who himself briefly ran for president this year, accused Bloomberg of being “haughty” in the face of facts that crime kept dropping even as the policy was scaled back. “That is the danger of a billionaire, a self-funder, a guy who has little interest in listening to others,” he said in an interview. Of stop-and-frisk itself, he added bluntly, “The way it was used is racist.”

Though the police tactics had all but ceased in recent years, leaders in some communities of color were wary of quickly absolving Bloomberg.

“Forgive many of us for questioning apologies a decade late and on the eve of a presidential run,” said Jumaane Williams, the current New York City public advocate. “It is not nearly enough to erase the legacy of the systemic abuses of stop, question, and frisk on the people whose lives were harmed by over-policing, nor the communities criminalized by it.”

Moments after services ended, Bloomberg called the Rev. Al Sharpton, who sparred with Bloomberg over stop-and-frisk during his mayoralty, from his car to ask if Sharpton had watched his speech.

“You can’t expect people like us to forgive and forget after one speech,” Sharpton said he told Bloomberg, promising to hold him to the same standard as other politicians, such as former Vice President Joe Biden, who has walked back his past support for tough-on-crime drug legislation, and Sen. Bernie Sanders.

At the program’s peak, the racial disparities in its enforcement were jarring. Of 575,000 stops conducted in 2009, black and Latino people were nine times as likely as white people to be targeted by the police (even though, once stopped, they were no more likely to actually be arrested). In 2011, police officers made about 685,000 stops; 87% of those stopped were black or Latino.

Bloomberg emphasized Sunday that the decline of stop-and-frisk began during his tenure, and he touted his record fighting gun violence. Still, Bloomberg acknowledged that the policy had led to an “erosion of trust,” and said that he hoped to “earn it back.”

“Over time, I’ve come to understand something that I long struggled to admit to myself: I got something important wrong,” he said. “I got something important really wrong. I didn’t understand back then the full impact that stops were having on the black and Latino communities. I was totally focused on saving lives — but as we know: Good intentions aren’t good enough.”

After Bloomberg stepped down from the pulpit and returned to his seat in the front row, the church’s pastor, the Rev. A. R. Bernard, a longtime ally and former adviser to Bloomberg, shook the former mayor’s hand.

“Come on C.C.C., show some love and appreciation,” Bernard said, amid tepid applause.

For 2020, the critical question is whether Bloomberg’s reversal will be received among black voters as one of pure political expediency or genuine remorse.

Amira Beatty, 49, a teacher who lives in Far Rockaway and attended the church service, was incensed by Bloomberg’s appearance. “This is about what he wants,” Beatty said. “He didn’t come to C.C.C. because he’s here to promote a C.C.C. initiative. He’s here to promote a Bloomberg initiative.”

Bloomberg did not shy away from the fact that he was reconsidering his record in his last job as he eyed a potential new one. “In recent months, as I’ve thought about my future, I’ve been thinking more about my past — and coming to terms with where I came up short,” he said.

Those close to Bloomberg have told him bluntly that running for president without addressing the stop-and-frisk matter first was a nonstarter.

“This issue is a threshold issue,” said Stephen K. Benjamin, the mayor of Columbia, South Carolina, who came to the church service and had dinner with Bloomberg several weeks ago, where the topic of stop-and-frisk came up. Benjamin said he had urged Bloomberg to run in 2020. “I’m a big believer that there is strength in humility and genuine contrition, realizing and articulating you got something wrong.”

Bloomberg had consistently stood behind the program until now. “I think people, the voters, want low crime,” Bloomberg told The New York Times last year. “They don’t want kids to kill each other.”

In fact, Bloomberg had come to this very same church, located in East New York, in 2012 to defend the stop-and-frisk program and answer mounting criticism around it.

“There is no doubt those stops have saved lives,” Bloomberg declared then. Linking it to a crime rate reduction at the time, he said, “When you consider that 90% of all murder victims are black and Hispanic, there is no doubt most of those victims would have come from communities like this one.”

But on Sunday, he acknowledged that the community around the church had experienced the program very differently. The church is situated at the edge of the 75th Precinct in New York, which the New York Civil Liberties Union said led the city with 265,393 stops between 2003 and 2013. In the nearby 73rd Precinct, total stops in that decade were 237% of the population, according to the report.

Bloomberg said he now recognized that too many innocent people were stopped. And the overwhelming majority of them were black and Latino,” he added. “That may have included, I’m sorry to say, some of you here today, perhaps yourself, or your children, or your grandchildren, or your neighbors or your relatives.”

Inside the sanctuary, Alfonso Estrada, who lives in the area, listened to Bloomberg’s speech and said he respected that the politician seemed to be examining his past closely.

“I think it is always good when you can reflect on your past mistakes and try to make amends for them,” said Estrada, 47. “We all deserve second chances.”

Several Democrats already running for the 2020 nomination, including Biden, have also issued mea culpas on matters of criminal justice. Sen. Kamala Harris of California has defended her record as a state prosecutor, but said she regretted some of the positions her office took. Mayor Pete Buttigieg left the campaign trail and returned to South Bend, Indiana, after a white police officer fatally shot a black man there, and admitted he had failed to diversify the city’s force.

The reversal on stop-and-frisk is the starkest in a series of steps that Bloomberg has taken in the last two weeks to lay the groundwork for entering the Democratic presidential primary himself, a step that appears increasingly imminent.

He has already filed to be on the primary ballot in two states, Arkansas and Alabama. His advisers have outlined a strategy to leverage his personal fortune by competing in the Super Tuesday sates on March 3. And he announced plans to spend $100 million on digital ads criticizing Trump — and not featuring himself — in general election battleground states, blunting criticism that he could spend his money better elsewhere.

Before his speech, Bloomberg sat down for coffee at the Park Plaza diner with Eric L. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president and a likely candidate for mayor in 2021.

“When he looks over his life and sees how much he has given back to the city but you see you have this real blemish that you realize is wrong, it’s not an easy thing to live with,” Adams said. “It becomes your narrative and overshadows all you have done to save lives.”

This article originally appeared in

Michael Bloomberg Apologizes for Stop-and-Frisk: 'I Was Wrong'

NEW YORK — Ahead of a potential Democratic presidential run, former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York on Sunday reversed his long-standing support of the aggressive “stop-and-frisk” policing strategy that he pursued for a decade and that led to the disproportionate stopping of black and Latino people across the city.

The speech, Bloomberg’s first since he reemerged as a possible presidential candidate, was a remarkable concession by a 77-year-old billionaire not known for self-doubt: that a pillar of his 12-year mayoralty was a mistake that he now regrets.

Speaking before the congregation at the Christian Cultural Center, a black megachurch in Brooklyn, Bloomberg delivered his apology in the heart of one of the communities most affected by his policing policies and at a location that nodded to the fact that, should he decide to run, African American voters would be a crucial Democratic constituency that he would need to win over.

Until Sunday, Bloomberg had steadfastly — and his critics say stubbornly — defended stop-and-frisk, which gave New York police officers sweeping authority to stop and search anyone they suspected of a crime. Bloomberg stood behind the program even after a federal judge ruled in 2013 that it violated the constitutional rights of minorities and despite the fact that crime continued to drop even after the program was phased out in recent years.

Bloomberg’s policing record is seen as one of his biggest vulnerabilities in 2020, given that black voters have helped determine the winner in the last nomination contests, elevating Barack Obama in 2008 and Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Moments after services ended, Bloomberg called the Rev. Al Sharpton, a prominent civil rights leader who sparred with Bloomberg over stop-and-frisk during his mayoralty, from his car to ask if Sharpton had watched his speech.

At the peak of stop-and-frisk, the racial disparities in its enforcement were jarring. Of 575,000 stops conducted in 2009, black and Latino people were nine times as likely as white people to be targeted by the police (even though, once stopped, they were no more likely to actually be arrested). In 2011, police stopped and questioned 684,330 New Yorkers; 87% of those stopped were black or Latino.

Proudly technocratic and data-driven, Bloomberg had long resisted what the numbers showed so starkly: Even as the stops were phased out toward the end of his administration and decreased sharply under his successor, Mayor Bill de Blasio, crime rates continued to plunge to new lows unseen since the 1950s.

“I now see that we should have acted sooner, and acted faster,” Bloomberg said on Sunday.

Bloomberg acknowledged Sunday that the program had led to an “erosion of trust” and said that he hoped to “earn it back.”

For 2020, the critical question is whether Bloomberg’s reversal will be received in the black community as one of pure political expediency or genuine remorse.

“After years of running the Apartheidlike policy of stopping and frisking millions of people of color throughout New York City, and then defending it every day in office, then every day he was out of office up until this week, @MikeBloomberg now admits he was wrong,” Shaun King, a racial justice activist and a supporter of Sanders in the presidential race, said on Twitter.

“You defended it for a whole generation,” he said. “Now you know you need Black votes and you have a change of heart.”

“There is no doubt those stops have saved lives,” Bloomberg declared then. He tried to link the stops to a 34% crime rate drop at the time. “When you consider that 90% of all murder victims are black and Hispanic, there is no doubt most of those victims would have come from communities like this one,” he said then.

But on Sunday, he acknowledged that the community around the church had experienced the program very differently. The church is situated at the edge of the 75th Precinct in New York, which the New York Civil Liberties Union said led the city with 265,393 stops between 2003 and 2013.

“Our focus was on saving lives,” Bloomberg said. “But the fact is: Far too many innocent people were being stopped while we tried to do that. And the overwhelming majority of them were black and Latino. That may have included, I’m sorry to say, some of you here today, perhaps yourself, or your children, or your grandchildren, or your neighbors or your relatives.”

The reversal on stop-and-frisk was the starkest in a series of steps that Bloomberg has taken in the last two weeks to lay the groundwork for entering the Democratic presidential primary, a step that appears increasingly imminent.

He has already filed to be on the primary ballot in two states, Arkansas and Alabama. His advisers have outlined a strategy that would circumvent the four states that vote first in the 2020 nomination contest in favor of the broader map on Super Tuesday, when he could leverage his personal fortune.

And he announced plans to spend $100 million on digital ads against President Donald Trump in key general election battleground states, blunting criticism that he could spend his money better elsewhere. Those ads would not feature him, advisers said, and the spending would be in addition to what he might spend on his own candidacy.

Bloomberg played coy about his plans from the pulpit. “I don’t know what the future holds for me,” he said.

NEW YORK — Ahead of a potential Democratic presidential run, former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York reversed his long-standing support of the aggressive “stop-and-frisk” policing strategy that he pursued for a decade and that led to the disproportionate stopping of black and Latino people across the city.

Bloomberg’s policing record is seen as one of his biggest potential vulnerabilities in 2020. Few Democrats have so evocative a record on criminal justice — there were millions of street stops heavily targeting black and brown young men during his 12-year tenure — and, in the last two presidential nomination contests, black voters helped determine the winner, elevating Barack Obama in 2008 and Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Proudly technocratic and data-driven, Bloomberg had resisted acknowledging what the numbers showed so starkly: Even as the stops were phased out toward the end of his administration and then decreased sharply under his successor, Mayor Bill de Blasio, crime rates continued to plunge to new lows unseen since the 1950s.

Even if the police tactics had all but ceased in recent years, Bloomberg’s speech attempted to bring a close to a deeply controversial chapter in New York City, one that leaders in some communities of color were wary of so quickly moving past.

Ten months ago, Sharpton had hosted another soon-to-be 2020 presidential candidate who expressed regret for his past at an event commemorating Martin Luther King’s Birthday. That day it was Biden, who walked back his support for tough-on-crime drug measures. Bloomberg spoke, too; he did not mention stop-and-frisk.

At the program’s peak, the racial disparities in its enforcement were jarring. Of 575,000 stops conducted in 2009, black and Latino people were nine times as likely as white people to be targeted by the police (even though, once stopped, they were no more likely to actually be arrested). In 2011, police stopped and questioned about 685,000 New Yorkers; 87% of those stopped were black or Latino.

Bloomberg emphasized Sunday that the decline of stop-and-frisk began during his tenure, and he touted his record fighting gun violence. Still, Bloomberg acknowledged that it had led to an “erosion of trust,” and said that he hoped to “earn it back.”

“And you can’t lie,” he added. “You’re in church.”

The reversal on stop-and-frisk is the starkest in a series of steps that Bloomberg has taken in the last two weeks to lay the groundwork for entering the Democratic presidential primary, a step that appears increasingly imminent.

He has already filed to be on the primary ballot in two states, Arkansas and Alabama. His advisers have outlined a strategy to leverage his personal fortune by competing in the broader map of states on Super Tuesday, March 3. And he announced plans to spend $100 million on digital ads criticizing President Donald Trump — and not featuring himself — in general election battleground states, blunting criticism that he could spend his money better elsewhere.

Bloomberg’s policing record negatively impacted huge swaths of people of color across New York, so much so that his support for “stop and frisk” is seen as one of his biggest potential vulnerabilities in 2020. During his 12-year tenure, there were millions of street stops heavily targeting black and brown young men. Few Democrats have such an indelible record on race, in a party where black voters helped determine the winners of the past two contested presidential primaries, Barack Obama in 2008 and Hillary Clinton in 2016.

“Over time, I’ve come to understand something that I long struggled to admit to myself: I got something important wrong,” he said. “I got something important really wrong. I didn’t understand back then the full impact that stops were having on the black and Latino communities. I was totally focused on saving lives, but as we know, good intentions aren’t good enough.”

“Come on CCC, show some love and appreciation,” Bernard said, amid tepid applause.

Amira Beatty, 49, a teacher who lives in Far Rockaway and attended the church service, was incensed by Bloomberg’s appearance. “This is about what he wants,” Beatty said. “He didn’t come to CCC because he’s here to promote a CCC initiative. He’s here to promote a Bloomberg initiative.”

In fact, Bloomberg had come to this very same church, located in East New York, in 2012 to defend stop-and-frisk and answer mounting criticism around it.

He has already filed to be on the primary ballot in two states, Arkansas and Alabama. His advisers have outlined a strategy to leverage his personal fortune by competing in the Super Tuesday states on March 3. And he announced plans to spend $100 million on digital ads criticizing Trump — and not featuring himself — in general election battleground states, blunting criticism that he could spend his money better elsewhere.

Bloomberg Says He Now Regrets 'Stop-and-Frisk'

And in a confidential memo to top bundlers this week, Biden’s campaign manager, Greg Schultz, sought to allay growing concerns that Biden is facing a cash crunch and will not be able to stay competitive with his rivals on the airwaves and on the ground.

“We will have the resources we need to execute our plan,” Schultz wrote in the memo, obtained by The New York Times. But he simultaneously exhorted the money-raisers to do more: “We’re asking you to dig deep.”

The Biden campaign and its backers are racing to contain fallout from revelations this month that his campaign is spending more money than it is taking in, unlike his leading rivals. Biden’s cash on hand — $9 million — is now only a fraction of what Sens. Bernie Sanders ($33.7 million) and Elizabeth Warren ($25.7 million) have banked. He even has less on hand than two candidates, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Kamala Harris, who are well behind him in the polls.

On Thursday, the Biden campaign delivered the clearest signal yet that it will do whatever it takes to survive financially, abandoning Biden’s long-held opposition to a super PAC independent of the campaign and clearing the way for donors to give unlimited sums in support of him. Biden advisers cited continuing attacks from President Donald Trump for the reversal.

Six months into his candidacy and 100 days until the Iowa caucuses, Biden is no longer the undisputed Democratic front-runner he once was. He entered the race in April making the case that, as Barack Obama’s vice president and a longtime leader with moderate and liberal views, he stood the best chance of uniting the party, attracting voters across racial, gender and ideological lines and winning over swing voters in battleground states.

While Biden still leads in many polls, and many voters still express deep appreciation for him, his financial situation — the inability to consolidate traditional big-money donors or inspire a sufficiently large online base of small contributors — has served as a flashing warning sign about the potential limits of his appeal.

One rival, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, said pointedly this week that he was “getting calls from people who are Biden supporters who now want to hedge their bet” on the former vice president.

Ed Rendell, the former Pennsylvania governor and a Biden fundraiser, acknowledged he had heard the anxieties. “They’re worried when they see only $9 million in the bank, because donors have a tendency to believe the person with the most amount of money wins,” said Rendell, who added that he does not share that view.

Schultz, the Biden campaign manager, said Friday that Biden was facing a financial situation unlike any other Democrat: He is taking incoming fire from both the White House and primary opponents on a daily basis, and needs to play both offense and defense within the limits of $2,800 maximum donations.

“We can’t both do a general election and primary. And no one can,” Schultz said. Of his rivals who have denounced the super PAC reversal, he added, “If they were being attacked with $10 million-plus of outside money in a general election sense, I would love to see what they would do.”

Biden’s allies are not only concerned about his fundraising: There is also the spending. Biden raised $15.7 million in the third quarter, but he spent $2 million more than that. Among his biggest expenses was more than $920,000 on chartered jets.

Terry McAuliffe, the former governor of Virginia and a prolific fundraiser, said that donors were “furious” about the jet spending and called the campaign’s overall money situation “very alarming.” McAuliffe’s wife recently invited donors to attend a fundraiser for Biden at their home in early November.

Schultz, when asked about the chartered travel, said that “whatever maximizes Joe Biden and voter interaction, the greater chance we have to win.” The campaign said Biden had flown commercial but declined to indicate when his last such flight was.

The pressure over money is bound to intensify as the leading Democratic campaigns compete in the early voting states and the extraordinarily expensive media markets of Super Tuesday states like California. Warren, currently Biden’s top rival, has already reserved $2.3 million more in television ads in the early voting states than he has, according to Advertising Analytics, a media-tracking firm. In the last 30 days, she spent twice as much as Biden on Facebook ads, while Buttigieg spent more than three times as much as Biden, who has begun buying more online ads after he sharply scaled back his digital spending over the summer.

Biden and his advisers wave off any cash concerns, arguing he is already universally known, seen as Trump’s strongest challenger and beloved in a way money cannot buy. Biden, in an interview set to air Sunday on “60 Minutes,” gave a blunt answer about how he would overcome his rivals’ cash edge: “I just flat-out beat them.”

More than most candidates, Biden has cultivated major Democratic bundlers who gather checks from friends and fellow supporters. To that end, Biden has used the old-fashioned strategy of giving fancy titles to his top bundlers: an “advocate” must raise $25,000, a “protector” $50,000 and a “unifier” $100,000. Perks, which vary by level, include monthly calls with campaign leadership, and invitations to finance committee retreats and forums.

Yet Biden has struggled to line up the vaunted Obama money operation behind him. Of the nearly 800 bundlers who raised at least $50,000 for Obama’s 2012 campaign — different because it was a presidential reelection, not a crowded primary — less than a quarter have donated to Biden so far this year, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission data. An even smaller share are actively tapping their networks for him.

One bright spot is that Biden’s online donations have picked up of late. His best week for raising money since the second week in the race came in late September as the impeachment scandal exploded. Then, in the first half of October, he raised more online than he had raised in all of September, the campaign said.

The campaign has employed some sky-is-falling tactics to spur giving, including an email last week threatening “budget cuts” if more money did not materialize. “Low on resources” was the subject line of a Friday missive. (No cutbacks are planned, the campaign said.)

If Biden’s fundraising does not improve, he could be hard-pressed to ramp up his operations for the primary season. Just to pay for his existing campaign infrastructure through the Iowa caucuses would require the $9 million he has in the bank now plus the full fundraising haul that he had in the third quarter.

In his memo to bundlers, Schultz outlined ways they were already trying to control costs, including having the headquarters staff stay at the homes of supporters “whenever it is available.”

“Clearly everybody would have liked if the Biden campaign raised more in the last quarter,” said Joe Falk, a Biden fundraiser in Florida. But Falk remained bullish on Biden’s position in the race. “Given the full frontal assault from the Republicans, the Russian bots and the competitors, his polling numbers are holding up better than expected,” he said.

Despite the competition from two liberals, Warren and Sanders, who have rejected the donor class and would be further left than any Democratic nominee in many years, Biden’s team has been unable to fully consolidate support of the Democratic establishment.

He has been out-raised in the last two quarters by Buttigieg, who has won over many former Obama-era ambassadors as a 37-year-old fresh face for the party.

On Monday, Bradley Tusk, who served as a reelection campaign manager for Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City, hosted a fundraiser for Buttigieg. According to Tusk, the crowd was filled with “a lot of those people you would have thought would be Biden people. And they weren’t.” (Attendees included Jon S. Corzine, the former New Jersey governor and Goldman Sachs executive, who had previously attended a Biden event in the Hamptons in the summer.)

“The feeling in the room,” Tusk said, “was that Biden has already lost.”

Biden’s dependence on donors who have given the $2,800 maximum amount was one reason for the reversal on a super PAC, which provides those donors a new outlet to give even more. Records show that almost 35% of the $37.7 million that Biden has raised so far has come from donors who have given the maximum.

“It just means we have to find new people, and the people we have found — the people who gave $2,800 — they ought to be able to find a buddy or two buddies,” said Alan Kessler, a lawyer in Pennsylvania raising money for Biden.

The super PAC reversal ignited swift denunciations from Sanders and Warren, both of whom were running anti-super-PAC ads on Facebook within 24 hours.

In addition to whatever the pro-Biden super PAC does, the International Association of Fire Fighters is preparing a pro-Biden campaign of its own, with a six-figure budget of mostly online spending, said Mark Treglio, a spokesman for the union.

The need for options like a super PAC reflect the reality that it can be especially hard for a candidate relying on big donors to raise money deeper into a campaign.

When Biden took his campaign’s first trip to Southern California in May, he held three fundraisers where a combined more than 600 people attended. But when he returned in October, he again held three events and drew about half as many people, a bit more than 300.

Next week, he is headed to Florida for at least two fundraisers, according to people familiar with his schedule.

Biden’s advisers and allies repeatedly emphasize that while he may not compete dollar for dollar with some rivals — or even come close — he is intrinsically different because he is already universally known and widely liked and seen as formidable against Trump. The word they kept coming back to was “resilience.”

As in, Biden has suffered through six months of criticism and attacks — from his rivals, from the news media, from the president — and remains at or near the top of the national polls.

“Any other candidate, it might concern you,” Mike Collier, a Texas bundler for Biden who has previously run for office himself, said of the campaign’s finances. “But with someone like Joe, I’m not anywhere near as concerned.”

'We're Asking You to Dig Deep': Biden Seeks to Steady Finances as Allies Fret

Steve Ricchetti, one of Joe Biden’s closest confidantes, is reaching out to wary donors to shore up support. The Biden presidential campaign is watching costs — some staff members are sleeping at homes of volunteers — and facing criticism for spending on chartered jets. Biden’s team is also urging allies to redouble fundraising efforts before the calendar turns to 2020 and he has fewer days to devote to the money trail.

The move represents a stark reversal and an implicit acknowledgment of his weakened position in the contest. He entered October with only $9 million in the bank, a fraction of his leading rivals.

Biden had explicitly denounced support from a super PAC in his 2020 run and had previously said he would not have blessed one if he had run in 2016. As recently as a month ago, when a possible pro-Biden super PAC surfaced, his campaign denounced the efforts.

But on Thursday, deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield softened that stance, blaming the barrage of ads and attacks from President Donald Trump and his allies and accusing them of interfering in the Democratic primary.

“Let’s be clear: Donald Trump has decided that the general election has already begun,” Bedingfield said. “He and his allies are already spending massive amount of money on paid television and digital advertising to intervene directly in Democratic primaries with the goal of preventing Joe Biden, the opponent that Trump fears most, from becoming the Democratic nominee.”

Bedingfield said Biden maintained his desire to remove private money from federal campaigns but that “nothing changes unless we defeat Donald Trump.”

Faiz Shakir, the campaign manager for Sen. Bernie Sanders, immediately criticized the flip.

“The former vice president has been unable to generate grassroots support, and now his campaign is endorsing an effort to buy the primary through a super PAC that can rake in unlimited cash from billionaires and corporations,” Shakir said. Biden himself had framed his opposition around the ability to appeal to middle-class Americans. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. To speak to the middle class, we need to reject the super PAC system,” he wrote on Twitter in April.

The Biden campaign had maintained its anti-super PAC posture in late September even as Trump’s attacks were underway, citing it as a matter of principle.

“The attacks aimed at this campaign from dark money groups helping Donald Trump spread his outlandish lies and slander have only served as a reminder of the urgent need for campaign finance reform,” T.J. Ducklo, a Biden spokesman, said then. “Which is exactly why since the beginning of this campaign, Biden for President has not and will not welcome the help of super PACs.”

While the Biden campaign statement Thursday did not explicitly embrace a super PAC, a senior aide to Biden contacted Tiffany Muller, the president of End Citizens United, which opposes big money in politics, shortly before the announcement to say Biden was dropping his opposition to a super PAC.

“It is incredibly disappointing to see Vice President Biden completely reverse his position now that times are tough,” Muller said. “I don’t think we could say it as well as he did when he said ‘people can’t possibly trust you’ if you accept support from a super PAC.”

Officials involved in the pro-Biden super PAC discussions a month ago had included Larry Rasky, a former aide to Biden, Mark Riddle, a political strategist, and Philip Munger, a prominent Democratic donor.

The Democrats planning the pro-Biden super PAC, which include Julianna Smoot, a former top fundraiser for Barack Obama, have also contacted Steve Schale, a Florida-based strategist, about playing a key role, according to party officials familiar with the conversations.

Biden Campaign Drops Opposition to Super PAC Support

Joe Biden’s campaign effectively dropped its long-standing opposition to receiving the assistance of super PACs on Thursday, opening the door for wealthy supporters to spend an unlimited amount of money to try to lift him in the Democratic primary.

All four debates will be held at universities, as has been recent custom.

The presidential debates will kick off Sept. 29 at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, according to the Commission on Presidential Debates. (The campus is adjacent to South Bend, Indiana, where Pete Buttigieg, one of the candidates for the Democratic nomination, is mayor.)

The others will be held Oct. 15 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and Oct. 22 at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee.

The lone vice presidential debate is scheduled for Oct. 7 at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

President Donald Trump won Indiana, Michigan, Tennessee and Utah in 2016, three of them handily. In Michigan, which will most likely be a battleground state in 2020, he beat Hillary Clinton by fewer than 11,000 votes.

The debates will run for 90 minutes without commercial interruption, the commission said. The moderators and format will be announced later.

The commission has sponsored and produced the general election debates since the 1988 campaign.

Not only do general election debates attract more viewers than any other campaign event; historically, these matchups have ranked among television’s most-watched broadcasts, political or otherwise.

In 2016, the first debate between Trump and Clinton was seen by 84 million live television viewers, the biggest audience since television debates started in 1960.

The next Democratic primary debate, hosted by CNN and The New York Times, is scheduled for Tuesday night.

2020 Presidential Debate Schedule Announced for General Election

The nonpartisan commission that governs presidential debates announced Friday the dates and sites for the three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate during the 2020 general election.

From the day Warren announced her plan to skip traditional fundraisers in February, she had said the pledge only applied to the primary. “I do not believe in unilateral disarmament,” she said then on MSNBC.

But she told CBS News in an interview posted on Tuesday evening that, even as President Donald Trump has set fundraising records, she would not change how her campaign raises money if she won the Democratic nomination.

“No, I will not be forced to make changes in how I raise money,” Warren said. “Look, for me this is pretty straightforward. Either you think democracy works and electing a president is all about going behind closed doors with bazillionaires and corporate executives and lobbyists and scooping up as much money as possible. Or you think it’s about a grassroots, let’s build this from the ground up.”

After her initial response, CBS’s Zak Hudak asked if that was Warren’s position “no matter how much money Donald Trump is raising.”

“Yeah I’m not going to do the big-dollar fundraisers. I’m just not going to do it,” Warren said. “The whole notion behind this campaign is that we can build this together. And that’s exactly what we’re doing.”

Powered by small donors, Warren has become one of the strongest Democratic fundraisers of the 2020 field, raising $24.6 million in the last three months from more than 940,000 donations, second only to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who raised $25.3 million.

Warren has steadily risen in the polls throughout the year and has recently began to top former Vice President Joe Biden in some surveys both nationally and in the early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

Warren’s campaign said in a statement that her position was not a reversal but “a clarification since the original version was a little vague.” The campaign said that she would ensure state and national parties “have the resources they need,” if nominated. Warren headlined a Democratic National Committee event in August, but she did not meet privately with large donors who attended. She is scheduled for another upcoming DNC event.

Previously, Warren had been clear that her pledge applied only to the primary. MSNBC’s Chris Hayes asked her that directly when she announced it (“Yes,” Warren replied). And in an interview with The New York Times over the summer, Warren said, “It’s primaries. This is Democrat against Democrat. I don’t believe in unilateral disarmament.”

Some of Warren’s rivals have privately grumbled about the inconsistency of her skipping fundraisers during the primary while bringing $10 million into her presidential campaign in leftover Senate funds and then saying she would restart such events if nominated. But no one has confronted her directly.

Warren is one of two Democrats to skip traditional fundraising events in the primary where candidates collect checks of up to $2,800. The other, Sanders, has said he would also refuse such events if nominated, a contrast his aides and allies have highlighted.

The move could also appeal to more fervent supporters of Sanders, whose base Warren has been seeking to win over.

Warren’s previous willingness to do such events as the nominee had been something of an olive branch extended to a Democratic establishment that remains wary of her insurgent-style candidacy. In a general election, donors can give as much as $300,000 per person at events for the nominee and the DNC.

In Shift, Warren Says She'll Forgo Big Money Events if Nominated

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who has risen in the Democratic presidential primary on her pledge to forgo traditional big-money fundraisers, said this week that if she became the nominee she would continue to skip such events, a reversal of what her position has been throughout 2019.

Sanders’ third quarter haul is the latest demonstration of the rising power of small donors to reshape presidential politics. His campaign moved swiftly on Tuesday to assert his financial might, reserving his first television ads of the campaign — a two-week, $1.3 million buy in Iowa.

Biden and Warren have yet to share their much-anticipated totals. But Warren’s figure is prompting much speculation; she is widely expected to improve upon the $19 million that she raised last quarter as she has surged in the polls to become Biden’s leading rival.

The expectations game is perhaps most fraught for Biden, whose efforts to fashion himself as the clear front-runner means that any slippage from the top of the ranks represents a risk.

Both Warren and Sanders have boycotted the big-money circuit, raising the possibility of a watershed moment: The two top fundraisers in the Democratic Party might end up being candidates who have turned their backs on the established class of political bundlers and financiers who have held sway for decades.

The third quarter is known as perhaps the toughest to raise money in, as big donors are often out of town vacationing in July and August while small contributors spend less time online in the summer. But the money totals are critical not only to set budgets, hire staff and run ads but also because they mark the last time in 2019 that campaigns must open their books, hardening public perception of viability — or lack of it — during a crucial three-month period.

The quarter ended on Monday and campaigns have until Oct. 15 to share their financial figures. Those without enough money can be winnowed quickly from the field; a half-dozen Democratic candidates have already called it quits this year.

“It dictates the narrative in the lead-up to the elections,” said Rufus Gifford, who served as finance director for President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign and has donated to multiple 2020 candidates. “The big game that’s going on inside the campaigns is how to manage expectations.”

Later on Tuesday, President Donald Trump demonstrated fundraising might that far surpassed any of the Democrats. Republican Party officials said that his reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee had raised $125 million over the last three months, a presidential fundraising record.

Earlier, Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, announced that he had raised $19.1 million in the third quarter, a dip from the field-leading $24.9 million he posted in the previous quarter, but more than enough to fully fund his once-upstart campaign into the fall and winter. Buttigieg has developed a grassroots following, pairing his 580,000 donors with an aggressive calendar of traditional fundraising events.

Sen. Kamala Harris announced an $11.6 million haul — nearly matching her totals in the first two quarters. She was the only campaign to announce her cash on hand: nearly $10 million, down from $13.3 million at the end of June, meaning she spent more than she raised in the last three months.

Biden raised $22 million in the last quarter, second to Buttigieg. But there are signs his fundraising operation has slowed, particularly online, where Biden has slashed his advertising budget.

While Warren and Sanders did not have to fill their calendars with fundraisers, Biden raced across the country in the last three months, from Florida to California, Aspen to the Hamptons, holding more than 40 donor events. His wife, Dr. Jill Biden, headlined another dozen.

This weekend, top Biden donors and bundlers have been invited to a retreat in Philadelphia to discuss the campaign’s next phase.

Biden’s campaign has said he scored his best week of fundraising since the second week of the campaign as Democrats initiated an impeachment inquiry of Trump over a whistleblower complaint claiming that Trump prodded the president of Ukraine to investigate the business dealings there of Biden’s son Hunter Biden.

Still, some Biden supporters are nervous about how the impeachment process, and any added scrutiny of Hunter Biden’s business affairs, will play out. Some have even discussed creating a super PAC, which the campaign quickly disavowed. Others see in Warren’s rise as a top rival, with Sanders in third, an opportunity for Biden to truly consolidate a donor class that has remained fractured.

Biden’s ability to attract small donors will be closely scrutinized. In the last 90 days, his campaign ranked 10th among the Democratic presidential candidates for advertising dollars on Facebook, where campaigns often prospect for new contributors. He spent less than one-quarter of what Buttigieg had spent on the platform in that time, and well less than half of what Warren and Sanders had spent, according to Facebook data.

Biden told donors at a sushi restaurant in Los Angeles last week that he had nearly 670,000 donations overall with an average donation of $46, which would translate to only about $10.8 million this quarter. A Biden campaign official said the former vice president had not presented the “full picture” but declined to elaborate.

A Biden campaign official said Tuesday that the former vice president had “unequivocally’’ raised enough money to be competitive in the primary race, and that details would be released soon.

Steve Westly, a bundler for Biden in California, said that skeptics and critics place too much importance on any one measurement of Biden’s candidacy.

“Every time someone is a front-runner, they say, ‘Oh my gosh, they’re not ahead in every straw poll, ahead in every state and every fundraising report,’” Westly said. “The reality is you want to be in first place, which is where Joe Biden is.”

Harold Schaitberger, a close Biden ally and president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, which has endorsed Biden, compared the race to a schoolyard game of “king of the hill.”

“If you’re the king and you’re on the hill, everybody else — in this case certainly within the Democratic candidates and the Republican Party — are doing everything they can to take you off the hill,” he said. “That’s the point of it.”

He said he had “seen no indication of any concern” about resources.

For Sanders, his $25.3 million quarter — which included his second biggest day for fundraising of the campaign, on Monday — was a welcome reprieve from weeks of questions about his pathway as he has stagnated in the polls and has been passed on the left by Warren. (In one Iowa poll, more of those who caucused with Sanders in 2016 said they planned to support Warren in 2020 than him.)

“Media elites and professional pundits have tried repeatedly to dismiss this campaign,” said Faiz Shakir, Sanders’ campaign manager, “and yet working-class Americans keep saying loudly and clearly that they want a political revolution.”

For Buttigieg, the third quarter was a period of rapid expansion: He went from zero field offices in the early states to 42, and his staff jumped to 400 people. Buttigieg, who began the year as a little-known mayor, has raised more than $51 million for the year, a remarkable sum for a newcomer to the national scene. But he has struggled to translate that cash into support beyond single digits in the polls.

While Harris’ haul was similar to her previous quarters, she entered October on a far different trajectory. She began the quarter riding high from her June debate performance — raising $4 million in the last four days of that month — but had faded by late September, promising to refocus on Iowa amid a staff shake-up.

One other campaign announced its numbers Tuesday: Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey raised more than $6 million, his best quarter yet. Ten days ago, in a gambit to draw attention and donations, Booker’s campaign said he would quit the race if he did not collect at least $1.7 million; he raised more than $2.1 million.

The quarterly fundraising report will be the first for Beto O’Rourke, the former Texas representative, since the shooting in his hometown of El Paso that appeared to give his candidacy fresh purpose.

Andrew Yang, the New York executive running a web-savvy campaign centered on the idea of giving away $1,000 to every American every month, is expected to post by far his best haul of the campaign.

Sanders Posts Biggest Quarter, Adding $25 Million

Sen. Bernie Sanders has produced the biggest fundraising quarter of the Democratic primary, as his campaign announced Tuesday that he had taken in $25.3 million over the last three months. Now the big questions looming over the donor race are whether Sen. Elizabeth Warren will surpass him, and whether former Vice President Joe Biden will trail far behind.

He delivered a soapbox speech at the state fair (“We have to break the corporate stranglehold on our democracy,” he said), visited the butter cow (“Not my first butter cow,” he corrected one fairgoer; he had been last year) and professed his desire to see farm animals.

What was unusual for a man who has never held elected office and been running for president for only a few weeks was that people kept recognizing him along the way.

“Hey, it’s the YouTube guy!” one woman shouted as Steyer strode past. He also heard from several fans of his TV ads, including Catherine Rondema of Portland, Oregon, who said she liked his commercials so much that she had timed her Iowa fair visit to hear him speak.

Steyer has spent $12 million on digital and television ads in only six weeks — more than any other Democratic presidential candidate has spent all year.

Whether Steyer can become something more than the billionaire buying the ads about how “our democracy has been purchased” is an open question.

His barrage of the airwaves has allowed a political novice to accomplish something that far better known governors, senators and the mayor of America’s largest city have not: luring 130,000 donors and topping 2% in three polls, which puts Steyer one poll short of qualifying for the national debate stage next month. His fortune has allowed him to be a force in the race even as other Democrats — the two-term governors Jay Inslee of Washington and John Hickenlooper of Colorado in recent days — have had to call it quits.

White, male, wildly wealthy and, at 62, older than the next-generation candidates in the field, Steyer would seem an unlikely messenger for a Democratic Party that is passionately debating racial and gender diversity, generational change and inequalities in American society. But his status as a virtual one-man “super PAC” is already upending the carefully laid strategies of Democratic rivals who must now grapple with the fact that they are unlikely to have the airwaves to themselves.

Running as something of a patrician populist, Steyer brushed aside the dissonance of someone with his résumé — Exeter, Yale, Stanford, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs — paying for ads that castigate the influence of “the powerful and well-connected.”

“I am the outsider in this race,” Steyer said in an interview. He described Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont as “part of the establishment” and asked whether the front-runner in the polls, former Vice President Joe Biden, really understood what this moment called for.

“The question really is for anybody running, including Vice President Biden, are you aware of how much has to change?” Steyer said, outlining a two-pronged agenda that would begin with rule changes to curb corporate power followed by significant action to address climate change.

He has spent more than $7 million on television so far, according to ad trackers, concentrated in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.

He has paid up to $10,000 for one 30-second broadcast spot in Boston, even though the New Hampshire voters he is targeting are a small fraction of the audience. No target audience appears too small. In Iowa, he is saturating viewers of Black Entertainment Television in Cedar Rapids seven day a week with spots as cheap as $11.

One tracking poll this week, from Morning Consult, which does not qualify him for the debate stage, showed him leaping to fifth place in the 21-candidate field, with 6% support in those four early states where most of his ads have aired.

DES MOINES, Iowa — As Tom Steyer, the billionaire former hedge fund investor and impeachment impresario, made his first trip to Iowa as a 2020 candidate this month, he embarked on the usual political circuit.

Shane Goldmacher

Articles written by the author

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