NEW YORK — On Monday, assorted bankers, traders and Wall Street lawyers will gather inside the neo-Georgian walls of the Harvard Club in midtown Manhattan to write big checks to an unlikely recipient: Ted Cruz.

Cruz, who attended Harvard Law School, isn’t one to trade too heavily on old school ties and friendships at the likes of Goldman Sachs, where his wife works. On the campaign trail, the Texas senator has railed against Wall Street “crony capitalism,” ripped giant banks as “too big to fail” and wrapped himself in populist garb in his quest to take down Donald Trump. But now he’s desperate: Cruz, who has already received $12 million in support from the financial industry, needs Wall Street money more than ever.


If he is going to keep Trump from getting the 1,237 delegates he needs to secure the nomination before the GOP convention, Cruz will have to spend heavily on the airwaves in the remaining primary and caucus states, especially California, which closes out the voting on June 7. Cruz ended February with $8 million in the bank. His campaign says he pulled in $12 million — only a modest haul, for this stage of the campaign — in March, but that money will evaporate quickly during the final sprint.

So Cruz and his wife, Heidi, currently on unpaid leave from her Goldman Sachs executive position, will gather with donors in New York next week to refill the coffers. Event chairs for the Harvard Club gathering must collect $25,000 each for Cruz. Members of the host committee must commit to bringing in $10,800. Those who donate $2,700 will get to schmooze with the Cruzes at a VIP reception. General admission is $1,000.

Given the formidable stakes, many on Wall Street are paying attention to Cruz’s overtures. Some say they dislike both Cruz and Trump but will come to the aid of Cruz as the lesser evil. Others find Cruz’s anti-Wall Street rhetoric, combined with his role in promoting Washington gridlock, too objectionable to overcome.

In a debate in November, Cruz ripped bailouts for “rich Wall Street banks.” More recently, Cruz slammed “New York values” while campaigning in Iowa. In a Bloomberg TV interview, Cruz even criticized Goldman, his wife’s employer, for receiving special favors from the government.

These words sting many bankers. But the main reason much of Wall Street loathes the idea of Cruz as the GOP nominee is the Texas senator’s record of waging bitter partisan war in Washington and refusing to compromise with party leadership. Bankers see a Cruz presidency as fraught with ideological warfare and short on the kind of progress executives crave on tax reform, trade, entitlements and infrastructure building.

“Wall Street wants a consensus builder, a negotiator, a meet-in-the-middle builder,” said Anthony Scaramucci, a hedge fund manager who, like many Republicans on Wall Street, backed candidates now out of the race.

Scaramucci’s list included Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and, finally, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, all vanquished during the primaries.

“The problem Ted has is, if you are blasting the business community and Wall Street alone for the financial crisis, that is completely unfair because it was a combination of forces that caused it, ” Scaramucci said.

Then there are the many on Wall Street who simply don’t like Cruz as a person. Most won’t say that on the record. But some will.

Ken Langone, co-founder of Home Depot and now a Wall Street investor who backs Ohio Gov. John Kasich for president, said he could never see himself getting behind Cruz.

“I couldn’t do it because I just don’t like the guy,” Langone said, echoing sentiments uttered privately by executives all over the financial industry. “I don’t like the way he presents himself and I don’t like the way he isolates himself. One of the problems in Washington is you have to get things done, and I don’t think he’s proven that he can work in that environment. I don’t like the man. I’m not a fan.”

Alice Stewart, a Cruz spokeswoman, argued that the disdain for Cruz on Wall Street is not at all fair.

“When he is talking about ‘New York values,’ he is talking about liberal political values that Donald Trump has supported with tens of thousands of dollars in contributions over decades,” she said. On Wall Street, Stewart said, Cruz’s message is not anti-industry but instead that “government shouldn’t be in the business of picking winners and losers.”

Still, Cruz might find the door completely shut to him on Wall Street were it not for one very helpful fact: Many bankers fear Trump even more.

That means the Texas senator will probably shake some more money out of traders and executives who think Cruz could lose to Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton in the fall, but perhaps not in the kind of wipeout many fear with Trump.

And should Cruz somehow win the White House, these bankers say, he would not be as big a wild card in Washington as Trump, who has promised giant border walls, trade wars and mass deportations.

“There isn’t any enthusiasm for Cruz, but people don’t fear him the way they fear Trump,” one prominent fixed-income manager said recently from his midtown conference room with sweeping views of lower Manhattan. “To use a Wall Street term, there is less ‘beta’ with Cruz, less volatility risk, less chance of him doing something crazy that destabilizes markets and the economy.”

But this Republican-leaning Wall Streeter, like a dozen others interviewed for this story, is sitting out the rest of the GOP presidential race. Feeling burned after pumping money to Bush and then to Rubio, many on Wall Street are waiting to see how the GOP circus ends before making a decision on whether to back the eventual GOP nominee, ignore the campaign entirely or grudgingly back Clinton, who has historic ties to the industry despite her recent populist lurches to keep pace with bank-bashing rival Bernie Sanders.

Some big donors, including hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, are helping bankroll super PACs dedicated to stopping Trump, which indirectly help Cruz. But many have stopped short of getting fully behind the Texas senator.

Part of the reason is many bankers view Cruz as hypocritical on Wall Street issues. Cruz has bashed Wall Street even though his wife works for Goldman and Cruz has been on the bank’s health insurance in the past. Cruz also secured large loans from Goldman and Citigroup to help fund his 2012 Senate campaign.

“There are a few reasons Wall Street won’t fully back him,” said a senior investment banker at a blue chip firm who previously backed Bush and then Rubio. “The first is his hard stance on social issues like abortion and gay marriage. The second is his general unlikability and the fact that he probably can’t win. And the third is all the bashing he’s done of Wall Street despite Heidi and everything else. People remember that. And despite Heidi, he really doesn’t have many close connections around Wall Street.”

That is not entirely true. Several senior Goldman bankers — Raanan Agus, Joseph Konzelmann and Tucker York among them — are supportive of Cruz. And the Texas senator and outside groups supporting his candidacy have raised $12 million from financial industry sources so far in the 2016 campaign, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The New York area has been among Cruz’s top locations for donors. Part of this reflects Cruz’s strong support for Israel and heavy backing in New York’s Jewish community.

Robert Mercer, co-CEO of hedge fund giant Renaissance Technologies, donated $11 million to Keep the Promise I, a super PAC supporting Cruz. So for all the bashing, Cruz has been a significant beneficiary of Wall Street largesse thus far.

“Cruz is partly dependent on Wall Street and similar financial interests for his campaign firepower,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director at the Center for Responsive Politics. “It’s clearly strategically motivated for him to call into question New York values and bash Wall Street while seeking support from the same industry.”

This kind of approach — ripping Wall Street while taking its money — turns a lot of bankers off of Cruz. But the bigger issue is a widespread belief that Cruz can’t win.

“There is no point is supporting someone who can’t win,” said the CEO of a large financial firm who also backed Bush and then Rubio. “We would wind up with a guy nobody really likes who can’t appeal to the broad mass of the American electorate. So I’m done with 2016. I’ve given up any belief that I know what’s going on.”

There are also glimmers of hope across Wall Street that neither Cruz nor Trump will wind up as the nominee. These fantasies center on House Speaker Paul Ryan emerging as a white knight at the GOP convention, despite his protestations, or delegates turning to Kasich, a former Lehman Brothers banker, as the consensus choice.

But as much as they might like to see it happen, few on Wall Street view either scenario as likely.

“The more you know about politics, the more you know this is never going to happen,” said a senior banker who has worked in national politics. “Anybody who is really politically aware knows that it’s ultimately better to have Cruz go down in flames than for Trump to go down in flames. People are coming around to that. Cruz probably won’t take down the House and Senate with him.”

As for Ryan, Wall Street executives are taking him at his word that he will not seek and would not accept the GOP nomination. Ryan said yet again on Tuesday that he would under no circumstances be the nominee.

“I spoke to him [last week], and I absolutely, 100 percent, believe that he is being straightforward on this,” said one hedge fund manager. “He is adamant about it. He feels it would be tantamount to political suicide and that you can’t have a guy enter the race who has not been in the race. That would be such a turnoff to voters.”

That leaves many anti-Trump bankers with two choices: Tune out of politics entirely or get past any doubts and sign on with Cruz.

One banker who is backing Cruz, but declined to be named, said people should get over their angst and learn to love the Texas firebrand.

“He’s married to a very successful Goldman Sachs executive, and he brings a knowledge of Wall Street that not every candidate has,” this person said. “Jeb and Marco were great, but they are gone. And there isn’t going to be any white knight. There is only Ted, and I think he will get more support as we move forward.”

