April 27, 2019

Democrats Launch a Joe Biden 2020 Super-PAC

But the former VP wants nothing to do with it.

Bastiaan Slabbers/NurPhoto/ZUMA

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Democratic operatives are launching a super-PAC to boost Joe Biden’s run for president, but the former vice president wants nothing to do with it. 

On Friday, the Hill reported that Democratic fundraiser Matt Tompkins has filed paperwork to establish the For the People political action committee to support Biden’s run for president, aiming to raise millions of dollars in order to run national and local media ads, as well as Facebook ads. On Saturday, Biden’s deputy campaign manager tweeted that Biden “does not welcome support from super-PACs.”

While ramping up his 2020 bid, Biden has said he won’t take money from corporate PACs or federal lobbyists, mirroring a number of his colleagues in the Democratic primary, including Sens. Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Bernie Sanders. Still, Biden faced criticism from Warren for attending a private fundraiser hosted by a top Comcast executive within 24 hours of announcing his presidential bid earlier this week. At the fundraiser, Biden met with many major Republican donors who see Biden as the moderate Democratic most capable of defeating Trump. Also in attendance were plenty of lobbyists who are registered with states, rather than with the federal system—a caveat that Harris, Booker, and Beto O’Rourke have also used to publicly eschew campaign donations from federal lobbyists while still tapping into lobbyist cash. 

The move by Biden to publicly disapprove of super-PACs amid a slew of fellow candidates doing the same also shows how much the Democratic political landscape has changed in a short time when it comes to campaign finance. During Barack Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012, Obama and Biden’s campaign opted to marshal the support of a super-PAC following concerns that their fundraising was lagging behind that of Republicans. 

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We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

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In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

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