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A slew of major Democratic donors, including Disney heiress Abigail Disney, have said they will withhold donations to the party until President Joe Biden drops his reelection bid.
The move represents a major escalation among the donor class. Calls for Biden to step aside are mounting after his debate performance last week raised serious questions about whether he is up for the job. Biden has insisted he is fit to run and will stay in the race.
Abigail Disney said in a statement to CNBC that she intends “to stop any contributions to the party unless and until they replace Biden at the top of the ticket.”
“This is realism, not disrespect,” she added. “Biden is a good man and has served his country admirably, but the stakes are far too high.”
Disney, whose grandfather co-founded The Walt Disney Co., said that “if Biden does not step down the Democrats will lose. Of that I am absolutely certain. The consequences for the loss will be genuinely dire.”
Many of the donors now withholding funds say they respect Biden, but the prospect of another four years of Trump is too terrifying to allow business-as-usual politics to continue.
A group of Democratic donors opposed to Biden’s candidacy are attempting to raise $100 million through the newly formed Next Generation PAC that would go to the person who replaces President Biden. If Biden stays on the ticket, the group said they would give the money to down-ballot candidates, The New York Times reported.
Democratic operative and donor Gideon Stein told the Times his family was withholding $3.5 million in donations until Biden passes the torch to a successor.
Chairman of IAC Barry Diller said the same Friday. When asked if he and his wife, Diane von Fürstenberg, were still supporting Biden’s candidacy, the longtime Democratic donor told The Ankler, “No.”
Another Democratic donor, Hollywood producer Damon Lindelof, wrote an essay in Deadline encouraging major benefactors like himself to stop giving money to the Democrats to force Biden’s hand.
“I’ve been asleep at the wheel and it’s time to wake the f—- up,” he wrote.
“The checks are what get us in the room where it happens. I wish that wasn’t true. I wish it was strength of character or viability of ideas. But it’s checks. Checks all the way down,” he wrote of donations to the party.
Lindelof proposed what he called a “DEMbargo.” “No checks written. No ActBlue links clicked. For anyone,” he wrote, comparing the situation to the US sanctioning a foreign country that is “not behaving how we want them to.”
While many donors are now united in asking Biden to step aside, not everyone agrees on who should replace him. Some are calling for an open Democratic convention. Disney told CNBC she would like Vice President Kamala Harris to be the nominee.
“We have an excellent Vice President. If Democrats would tolerate any of her perceived shortcomings even one-tenth as much as they have tolerated Biden’s (and let’s not kid ourselves about where race and gender figure in that inequity) and if Democrats can find a way to stop quibbling and rally around her, we can win this election by a lot,” she said.