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.

The move deferred more than $700,000 in payroll costs for candidates including Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Michael Bennet and Govs. Steve Bullock and Jay Inslee, federal election records show. It affected more than 200 campaign aides, from the junior-most field staff in Iowa to senior national advisers.

The delay also pushed paychecks into the third quarter of 2019, essentially keeping them off the books for three months until the next campaign finance reports are filed in October.

That does not violate campaign laws, but it is a symptom of the high stakes of the 2020 money race and a crowded field choked with candidates struggling to stay alive before this week’s second round of debates in Detroit. In a presidential primary with many Democratic hopefuls competing for campaign cash, a candidate’s viability is often judged by donors, the media and even rivals with a cursory look at campaign balance sheets.

Delaying paychecks was only one tactic employed to cast the fundraising reports delivered to the Federal Election Commission in July in the most positive form. Some collected funds they cannot legally spend in the primary, a distinction buried deep in the reports. Some racked up debts. One candidate, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York, used a state-level political action committee for campaign expenses, which has raised legal questions.

“It’s in their interest to spin the numbers in the best light possible,” said Michael Beckel, an investigator and researcher with Issue One, which advocates campaign-finance transparency, “and using accounting gimmicks to paint an even rosier picture is one way they are going to try to sell their campaign to the donor class and the Democratic base writ large.”

Of the 2020 field, Klobuchar of Minnesota delayed the largest payroll payment at the end of June. Her previous mid-June payroll had shown roughly $275,000 in salary and taxes. By holding off payment of the next set of paychecks until July, her cash on hand was inflated by at least that amount (her staff has been steadily growing).

But that is not the only maneuver that boosted the appearance of Klobuchar’s books. She has raised more than $750,000 in funds earmarked for the general election — money from donors who gave her more than the $2,800 legal maximum for the primary. While it is technically money she has in the bank, she cannot legally spend it in the primary.

Combined with her delayed payroll, Klobuchar’s spendable cash reserves are about $1 million less than the $6.7 million figure that appears in her filing. Her campaign declined to comment.

Then there is Inslee, the Washington governor. He reported $1.2 million in cash on hand, which would appear to rank him 14th in the field. But Inslee’s actual financial position is far weaker. He had nearly $172,000 in unpaid bills. Nearly one-third of his funds, more than $400,000, was earmarked for the general election. And he did not pay June’s final payroll — another $75,000 or so — in that month, records show.

Accounting for those maneuvers, Inslee’s actual cash position was less than half of what it initially appeared — a little shy of $550,000. His campaign declined to comment.

The campaigns of Inslee, Klobuchar and others who delayed payroll had been sending their second bimonthly paychecks on the last day of the month, which fell on a Sunday in June. The campaign of Bullock of Montana was the only one to respond to a request for comment, saying the delay was simply because June 30 fell on a Sunday. But other campaigns with bimonthly payouts, such as Sen. Kamala Harris of California and former Housing Secretary Julián Castro, cut checks on Friday, June 28, the last workday of the month.

Reliance on financial gimmicks to boost the bottom line is most common among those polling toward the back of the pack. But upper-tier candidates are not immune.

Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas bragged about breaking Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 24-hour record for fundraising in March. Only later, when he filed his full financial report, was it clear his total included general election funds he could not spend in the primary. And the campaign of Harris pushed a $1 million payment to her digital consultancy until the first day of the second quarter, boosting her first cash-on-hand report. The $1 million payout was the largest single payment any campaign has made to any vendor.

Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, who did not qualify for the June or July primary debates, reported $725,000 cash on hand at the end of June, among the lowest figures in the field. The reality was even more grim.

Moulton did not pay out a final June paycheck to aides that month — obscuring roughly $96,000 in expenses. Plus, he had $98,000 in debts and more than $200,000 of his funds were earmarked for the general election. His functional cash total was closer to $325,000.

Former Rep. John Delaney of Maryland was the other candidate who pushed back the final June payday; Delaney, along with Klobuchar and Inslee, had previously pushed the final first-quarter payroll into the second quarter.

De Blasio did something entirely different to boost his financial position. He used a state-level PAC to underwrite some of his presidential activities, a move called “bewildering” by Brendan Fischer, director of the federal reform program at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit watchdog group.

De Blasio reported paying the state PAC $123,000 for polling and owing another $53,000 for travel and digital ads. But he did not report the donations to the PAC to his campaign. Among the problems with the arrangement is that the state PAC received money from contributors who also gave the maximum allowed to de Blasio’s campaign, Fischer said.

“It looks an awful lot like a violation, and possibly more than one violation,” Fischer said of the arrangement, which was first detailed by Politico and The City. He added that the Campaign Legal Center was “very likely” to file a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission.

In another unusual move, de Blasio’s campaign claimed that the costs for his presidential campaign launch video were not entirely related to his presidential campaign.

His state PAC and campaign made identical $19,964 payments to Freedomland Media, the vendor that produced the video. A campaign spokeswoman, Jaclyn Rothenberg, said it was proper for the state PAC to pay for part of the cost because it was commissioned “before he had made a decision” to run and his PAC would have made a video if he was not running for president.

De Blasio, who has faced campaign finance investigations in New York, told reporters earlier in July that “everything we’ve done is according to the law.”

While de Blasio used a state PAC, other candidates were operating federal PACs that served as de facto campaigns-in-waiting ahead of their launch. Those PACs must disclose their full finances by Wednesday.

Not every 2020 candidate resorted to raising general election funds. Some actively refunded such donations, including former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, raised the most, about $825,000, but that accounts for only a small fraction of his $22.7 million war chest.

While campaigns can push off costs besides payroll into future quarters, those can be impossible to track until months later, when the next quarterly filing is made. In the first quarter of 2019, several campaigns held off making big payments to vendors that were buying advertising until April 1 — the first day of the new quarter.

The biggest was Harris’ $1 million payment to her digital team, but Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey paid $254,697 to a vendor, Klobuchar $300,000 and Delaney $238,283 — all on April 1.

Campaigns will not have to reveal until mid-September what payments they deferred into July. Of course, by then, it is possible not all these candidates will still be running for president.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/us/politics/2020-democrats-campaign-finance.html" id="69e89c86-73bc-3d03-a2ce-d93d6231bd39">The New York Times</a>.

Low in Cash and Polls, 2020 Democrats Get Creative With Accounting

Staff members  for a half-dozen  Democratic presidential candidates did not receive their final June paycheck that month. Instead, their campaigns nudged payday into July, an accounting maneuver that obscured payroll costs and temporarily made it look like candidates had more cash on hand than they actually did.

“We have Democratic candidates running for president right now who do not believe necessarily that it’s a good idea that women work outside the home,” she said emphatically before a women’s labor event in Iowa City, Iowa. “No joke.”

Gillibrand did not name names, and her campaign would not say whom she was referring to.

The stark accusation came ahead of next week’s second round of Democratic debates in Detroit and at a crucial juncture for Gillibrand, who has found little traction in the polls and is at risk of falling short of the party’s thresholds to qualify for the fall debates.

“Kirsten believes we need to have a broader and more intentional conversation about valuing women in this country and even this primary, and she intends to do so in the coming days,” said Meredith Kelly, a spokeswoman for Gillibrand. “Stay tuned.”

Gillibrand also accused some of her rivals of believing the #MeToo movement that has empowered victims of sexual violence had “gone too far.” She said some Democrats “turn a blind eye to sexual assault” and questioned whether women are being valued sufficiently in the Democratic Party, even as a record-setting number run for president.

“I’ve got to tell you, I’m really sick of it. I’m so freaking sick of it. I can’t tell you how angry I am that Democrats, Democrats turn a blind eye to sexual assault, sexual harassment and any reforms that value women in the workplace,” Gillibrand told the audience.

Her remarks came days after The New Yorker reported that seven of the Democratic senators who had called for Al Franken to resign from the Senate in December 2017 now regret that decision.

Gillibrand was the first Democratic senator to call for Franken to step down after eight accusations of sexual misconduct. His allies have long blamed her for his quick downfall, even though dozens of other Democratic senators called for Franken’s resignation as well, some within minutes of Gillibrand.

“We have presidential candidates running right now who think the Me Too movement has gone too far. Well, what do you mean by that? Do you mean any woman who has come forward to say she has been sexually harassed or sexually assaulted shouldn’t be complaining?” Gillibrand said.

“What are you saying? That any man, especially a powerful man, a well-liked man, should be able to grope you?” she said. “Is that what you believe? We have members, we have people who are running for president of the United States as Democrats who believe the standards for the Democratic Party are too high. Really? How would you feel if your child was groped, anywhere on their body? How would you feel if somebody that you know and love is forcibly kissed without their consent? I don’t think it would be OK then.”

Gillibrand’s comments were first reported by Iowa Starting Line, a politics website.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/26/us/politics/kirsten-gillibrand-feminist-metoo.html" id="ab2447e8-2ebb-39fc-ab0f-2e67d5b0dba6">The New York Times</a>.

Gillibrand Accuses Unnamed Democratic Rivals of Not Supporting Women Working 'Outside the Home'

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York accused some of her fellow Democratic candidates for president of not supporting women who work outside the home Thursday, her most pointed attempt yet to frame her struggling candidacy as the best option for female voters.

The accusation came ahead of next week’s second round of Democratic debates in Detroit and at a crucial juncture for Gillibrand, who has found little traction in the polls and is at risk of falling short of the party’s thresholds to qualify for the fall debates.

Biden’s team had viewed his early fundraising as an important metric by which his nascent candidacy would be measured. His campaign sent multiple emails asking for donations Thursday, his first day in the race, and he attended a high-dollar fundraiser in the evening.

On Friday, the campaign celebrated its total in a note to supporters, calling it “AMAZING news.”

Biden’s campaign said 96,926 people had contributed in the first day, and that 65,000 of the donations were from people who were not previously on his email list of supporters.

The campaign said 97% of online donations were below $200, but it declined to disclose the share of overall contributions that were below that threshold. The average given per donor was about $65, higher than the first-day averages reported by some rivals.

Biden has been perched at or near the top of most polls of the sprawling Democratic field. Still, he and his advisers spent recent days privately urging major donors about the importance of his financial showing in the first hours and days of the contest.

They pointed to key bench marks such as the $6.1 million first-day haul for former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas, and the $5.9 million collected in 24 hours by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. (O’Rourke’s total was inflated by $300,000 in general election funds that cannot be spent in the primary; Sanders and Biden are not collecting such funds.)

Biden held a conference call Wednesday, the eve of his announcement, to rally and consolidate support from potential top contributors.

His haul was impressive, especially compared with the last time he ran for president. In all of 2007, Biden raised $8.2 million from individual donors.

Bernard L. Schwartz, an investor and Democratic donor, said he saw Biden as the party’s best chance to defeat President Donald Trump, and was pleased Biden jumped in “with both feet.”

“He’s raised a lot of money the first day,” said Schwartz, who donated the maximum $2,800 and was on Wednesday’s conference call. “But the first day is only the first day.”

The bigger question for Biden was how he would fare among donors making small contributions online, who have become the new currency of Democratic politics. Unlike Sanders, who ran for president in 2016, and O’Rourke, who set fundraising records as a Senate candidate in 2018, Biden did not enter the race with a small-donor base.

But as the former running mate of President Barack Obama, Biden did have access to the same email list that raised so much money for the ticket in 2008 and 2012. The fundraising power of an email list atrophies relatively quickly, according to digital campaign experts, and seven years is a particularly long time to lie fallow.

Biden’s campaign said Friday that it was “unprecedented” to collect 65,000 donations from people not on campaign email lists.

Overall in the first quarter of 2019, Sanders touted more than 525,000 contributors. O’Rourke had more than 163,000, followed by Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana (158,000); Sen. Kamala Harris of California (138,000); and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts (135,000).

Biden has the advantage of national name recognition and broad popularity among Democrats. But he is also expected to quickly assemble a robust staff that must be paid.

On Thursday, his campaign announced 26 “key campaign hires” who will work for Biden at the national level, and it has even more people lined up in the states that will begin the nominating contest: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.

Biden spent his first evening as a presidential candidate at the Philadelphia-area home of David L. Cohen, a top executive at Comcast and a former political operative who is one of the Democratic Party’s leading fundraisers.

Several prominent Pennsylvania politicians were listed as the event’s hosts, who also included Daniel J. Hilferty, chief executive of major health insurer Independence Health Group, the parent of Independence Blue Cross.

“It’s gauche to talk about money, so I’m not going to talk about money,” Cohen said at the fundraiser, according to a recording of his remarks. “But all I’m going to say is that once again this group has produced an event that is off the charts, beyond anyone’s expectations.”

Biden’s rivals took note of his entry into the race. Harris, O’Rourke, Sanders, Warren, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, former Mayor Julián Castro of San Antonio and Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington all emailed supporters with Biden’s name in the subject line to gin up their own donations.

Sanders and Warren delivered pointed messages about how Biden spent his first evening as a candidate. “How did Joe Biden raise so much money in one day?” Warren’s team wrote. “Well, it helps that he hosted a swanky private fundraiser for wealthy donors at the home of the guy who runs Comcast’s lobbying shop.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/us/politics/joe-biden-fundraising.html" id="560e8b03-ec73-3ef3-ad0a-c5c4c91f533a">The New York Times</a>.

Joe Biden’s presidential campaign announced Friday that it had raised $6.3 million in its opening 24 hours, surpassing the first-day totals of his rivals and easing concerns among some supporters over whether he would be able to compete financially in the Democratic primary.

Biden Raises $6.3 Million, Topping Rivals' First-Day Hauls

Biden’s team had viewed his early fundraising showing as important, not just for the infusion of money but also as a metric by which his nascent candidacy would be measured. His campaign sent multiple emails asking for donations Thursday, and he attended a high-dollar fundraiser in the evening.

His campaign celebrated its total in a note to supporters, calling it “AMAZING news.”

All told, Biden’s campaign said 96,926 people had contributed in the first day, and that 65,000 of the donations were from people who were not previously on his email list of supporters.

Former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign announced Friday that it had raised $6.3 million in its opening 24 hours, the biggest first-day haul of any 2020 candidate, easing concerns among some supporters over whether he would be able to raise the money needed to compete financially in the Democratic primary.

Shane Goldmacher

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