The former vice-president has strong ties with Wall Street but the Democratic presidential field prizes small-donor support

Former vice-president Joe Biden has said he is in the “final stages” of making a decision on whether to run for the Democratic presidential nomination. The move could even come as soon as this weekend when Biden delivers a Saturday speech to the local Democratic party in Delaware, the state he served as a US senator from 1973 to 2009.

But some are already warning that Biden’s ties to the business community and Wall Street could serve to undermine his avuncular reputation as “middle-class Joe” within a party increasingly dominated by progressive politics on social and economic issues.

Moreover, Biden has not run a campaign in his own right since challenging Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for his party’s nomination in 2008, a lifetime ago in political terms and an era dominated by big-money political action committees (Pacs) and wealthy backers now considered problematic to candidates who must display grassroots, small-dollar donor support as proof of their viability.

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Should he enter the race, Biden is reportedly planning to rely on an “old-school grind-it-out” plan. With limited campaign operations in key states, a candidate known for disliking the grind of fundraising could suddenly be faced with raising millions of dollars to compete in what is likely to the most expensive presidential campaign in US history.

According to the campaign finance watchdog, OpenSecrets, Biden’s fundraising in 2008 mirrored Obama’s in shunning money from Pacs as a way to curb the influence of special-interest groups while accepting donations from wealthy individual donors.

“He’s in an unusual position because he’s against candidates who have been fundraising recently and he hasn’t had his own campaign since his unsuccessful presidential bid in 2008,” said OpenSecrets’ Ben Quinn. “A lot of political fundraising norms have changed and his ability to fundraise is unknown.”

The group, part of the Center for Responsive Politics, found that Biden was never that effective in the financial aspect of campaigning for political office. In his 2008 campaign, Biden was outraised by four other Democratic candidates in the final three months of his campaign, having raised barely half of his $20m goal.

On the 2020 campaign trail the issue of small donors versus big money is already flaring up, with Elizabeth Warren vowing not to court wealthy donors despite hurting for campaign funds.

Biden acknowledged his financial quandary at a recent appearance at the University of Delaware.

“We also are making a decision on whether or not we can fund this campaign on my conditions because I will not be part of a super Pac – and to see whether or not it’s realistic,” Biden said. “An awful lot of people have offered to help – the people, who are usually the biggest donors in the Democratic party, and, I might add, some major Republican folks.”

But who might those be? Between 1990 and 2008, Biden ranked among the top 10 members of Congress to receive money from lawyers and law firms ($6.6m), and among the top 20 to collect contributions from the real estate industry ($1.3m).

Finance and credit companies have contributed nearly $300,000 to Biden, with the credit card giant MBNA, headquartered in Delaware, contributing $214,100. Lobbyists were his 10th largest contributing industry, giving him $344,400 since 1989, while over the 2008 election he received $43,000 more than the average $81,700 that lobbyists have given senators.

“He obviously has a lot of friends among the Democratic donor community,” the Obama aide David Axelrod told AP this week. “But fundraising today is turbo-charged by social media. He’s not of the social media generation.”

But others express confidence that once Biden announces, Democratic donors who have so far held back will open their checkbooks.

“I think he’d raise more money than several of the top candidates combined,” Don Peebles, a member of Obama’s national finance team, said. “He’s the best chance that the Democrats have to win in November.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Members of the International Association of Fire Fighters cheer as Joe Biden speaks at the group’s conference in Washington on Wednesday. Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images

Biden may simply be unable to ignore Wall Street despite the potential political price he may pay for that association. He needs them and they him, even as a recent poll found that 72% of Americans believe that Wall Street has too much influence in Washington.

The financial sector is where the big money is, and Biden, like Obama before him, is not shy about tapping wealthy financier donors for initial support until it is possible to win broad support from a large number of smaller donors.

That pattern appeared to be playing out earlier this year, the Atlantic reported, when Biden dropped in on the Blackrock CEO, Larry Fink. Fink, one of the wealthiest men on Wall Street, reportedly told Biden: “I’m here to help.”

And BlackRock loves to help. It has spent $22m on direct lobbying since 2004, according to Open Secrets, and the firm has given hundreds of thousands more to campaign committees and super Pacs.

It’s not hard to see to why Wall Street trusts “Uncle Joe.” In 1999, he voted in favor of overturning the 1933 Glass Steagall Act, which liberalized banking activity. As senator for Delaware, he consistently supported the deregulation of the financial services industry.

According to the political consultant Dan Becker, Biden’s Delaware connections are not as important as his familiarity with institutional thinking and its needs. Biden is no stranger to Wall Street, including attending Salt, the Las Vegas event held by Anthony Scaramucci’s investment firm SkyBridge Capital.

“Wall Street is financial institutions and institutions want things to work in a predictable manner in a relatively stable environment. They don’t want a disrupter, and Trump is notoriously a disrupter, and they see that Joe Biden is cut from a cloth they know they can manage and be successful,” said Becker.

For Wall Street, he says, it is a “rational decision to be supportive of Biden”.