New York Times: Wall Street Backs Joe Biden

Wall Street’s many campaign donors are lining up behind Joe Biden, not the incumbent President of the United States, according to the New York Times.

Under the August 9 headline, “The Wallets of Wall Street Are With Joe Biden, if Not the Hearts,” three reporters wrote:

While Wall Street financiers tend to be more socially liberal, they have collectively swung back and forth between parties. Data from the Center for Responsive Politics show the securities and investment community donating more to President George W. Bush in 2004, and then to Mr. Obama in 2008, and then to Mitt Romney in 2012, followed by Mrs. Clinton in 2016, than to their respective presidential rivals.

This year, it’s Mr. Biden. Financial industry cash flowing to Mr. Biden and outside groups supporting him shows him dramatically out-raising the president, with $44 million compared with Mr. Trump’s $9 million.

The donors are already pressuring Biden to pick a business-friendly candidate for vice president, and Biden is signaling a hands-off policy toward Wall Street:

In recent meetings with donors, Mr. Biden has said that while the wealthy are going to have to “do more,” the details of his tax hikes are still being hammered out … in July, the candidate spoke of the need for corporate America to “change its ways.” But the solution, he said, would not be legislative.

“I love Bernie, but I’m not Bernie Sanders. I don’t think 500 billionaires are the reason why we’re in trouble,” Biden said in 2018

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