Democratic Donors Feel Resignation, Anxiety Over Biden—and Trump-Fueled Hope

WASHINGTON—In private phone calls and quiet conversations, Democratic donors admit they have been rattled.

When last week’s special counsel report raised questions about President Biden’s memory, donors hit the phones, discussing their worries about his vulnerabilities in hushed tones. But conversations with more than a dozen fundraising bundlers revealed that even those who are worried about Biden are resigned to the idea that the 81-year-old incumbent will be the Democratic nominee—barring a serious health problem or an abrupt change of heart on his part—and there is no effort to try to push him aside.

Recent days have also given Democrats some reasons to hope, as former President Donald Trump again took the spotlight with his controversial comments about NATO, and Democrats won a closely watched special election on New York’s Long Island. Then on Friday, a New York judge ruled Trump and his business should pay more than $350 million for misrepresenting his wealth for financial gain.

Biden’s age and prospects—and Trump—were the center of conversation during a luncheon earlier this month, on the day after Biden’s dramatic news conference rebutting the report, at a table of eight Democratic donors at a downtown D.C. seafood restaurant. After the special counsel’s report, several of the donors expressed angst about Biden’s chances, prompting one of the donors to remind them of the alternative.

“Get with the goddamn program!” the donor told the rest of the table, according to the donor who relayed the exchange. “It’s not Biden versus Biden. It’s Biden versus an insurrectionist.”

Said another Democratic donor: “I don’t care if Joe Biden is a sequel to ‘Weekend at Bernie’s.’ If Joe Biden is the nominee, I’m all in because of who he is running against.”

Many donors said they had spent time with Biden in recent months and described him as clear and capable. They also cited the advanced schedule of the primary contests—filing deadlines for more than 30 state primaries have already passed—and a lack of certainty on what a contested nomination might look like in the months ahead.

Longtime Democratic bundler John Morgan, a Florida attorney planning a Biden fundraiser for later this spring, said the donors are behind the president, adding, “He’s earned it.” He also said there was no way to change course now with the Super Tuesday primaries, which include 15 states and American Samoa, coming March 5.

“​​I don’t even know what it would look like if he dropped out at this point in time,” Morgan said. “At some point you’ve crossed the Rubicon, burned the boats and that’s that.”

Jim Messina, campaign manager for President Obama’s 2012 re-election bid, said, “I think the party’s got down to: It is going to be Biden versus Trump, [the report] is what it is, and that it didn’t really change anything.”

The fear of Trump returning to the White House is also a driving motivation for donors. Trump reinforced that thinking by suggesting he would encourage Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” against North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries that were negligent on their defense spending. The comment, which Biden swiftly condemned, offered a reminder of Trump’s chaotic leadership and how he could undermine America’s national security as president.

Other events this week also underscored the turbulent moment on the world stage. Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who long sought to weaken Russian President Vladimir Putin’s grip on power, died in prison, according to Russian news agencies.

Some Democrats worry that any public, intraparty uprising against Biden would serve only to weaken him in his matchup against Trump without actually yielding a different Democratic nominee. There also is no consensus in the party about whether Vice President Kamala Harris would perform better in November if she were the choice instead of Biden.

Biden donors say the president’s fundraising remains strong and he is slated to haul in multimillion-dollar amounts at events next week in California, including one in Los Angeles alongside Hollywood businessmen Haim Saban and Casey Wasserman, and in San Francisco with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.). Campaign aides stressed that Biden has also seen strong grass-roots fundraising, which will be key to powering the campaign.

Organizers expect Biden’s March 28 fundraiser in New York with former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton to be their most lucrative event to date, surpassing a January fundraiser in Miami that raised $7 million, according to people familiar with the planning.

An email from first lady Jill Biden to supporters in the wake of the special counsel report became the top-performing email since the April 2023 launch, campaign officials noted, even though it didn’t specifically ask recipients to donate.

Many donors said they want to see more of Biden campaigning, particularly doing the smaller retail events he has favored in recent months as he has eschewed interviews.

One longtime donor said “the vibe is a lot of worried people,” adding that there had been plenty of hand-holding of fellow Biden contributors in recent days. But the donor said there hadn’t been any serious discussion about pushing Biden to exit from the race. “People aren’t jumping off cliffs, but there is heightened concern,” he said.

Those fears have been complicated by the potential for a more robust presence from third-party candidates in the November election. During the Super Bowl, supporters of independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. aired an ad evoking the famous political family that once led the Democratic Party. His presence could pull support from the two major candidates, disrupting the race in closely fought states.

Biden also continues to face pressure over his handling of Israel’s war with Hamas—particularly from progressives in his own party—with demonstrators disrupting many of his recent events. And his appearance on Friday in East Palestine, Ohio, one year after a train derailment released toxic chemicals into the area, put the president on the defensive. Trump notably visited the community shortly after the train wreck and said Biden’s visit a year later was “an insult” to the community and the state.

Trump, however, has plenty of his own challenges. On Thursday, the day before the New York ruling against him in the fraud case, a judge set a March 25 trial date in the case accusing the former president of falsifying business records related to a scheme to pay hush money to a porn star. It is among the 91 criminal charges faced by the former president in cases that are expected to coincide with the primaries and into the summer months.

Philip Levine, a former Miami Beach, Fla., mayor and a Biden donor in 2020 who has expressed support for a third-party alternative, said, “People are trapped between a rock and a hard place—they don’t like either choice.” He said he remains worried that Democrats are too focused on motivating their voters through an opposition to Trump.

“You don’t win an election because they don’t like the other guy. You win an election because they love you, they are passionate for you and they come out for you,” Levine said. “And that’s the concern in this election.”

Write to Catherine Lucey at [email protected] and Ken Thomas at [email protected]