Buttigieg breaks out - with Wall Street donors

Wall Street donors have a new favorite candidate in the 2020 Democratic presidential field: Pete Buttigieg.

The mayor of South Bend, Indiana, the fourth-largest city in the 17th-largest state may be an unlikely candidate for Wall Street largesse. But Buttigieg leads his rivals in collecting contributions from the securities and investment industry, pulling in $935,000 through the first three quarters of this year, according to figures from the Center for Responsive Politics.

And as Buttigieg's star has risen in Iowa as a credible alternative to former vice president Joe Biden, his support from financiers has surged. He nearly doubled his fundraising from the sector in the third quarter, raising about $435,000.

Buttigieg is trailed closely in his Wall Street haul by Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, who has raised $927,000 from the industry; Biden ($889,000); and Sen. Kamala Harris of Calif. ($765,000), according to figures from the center.

Unsurprisingly, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who have both made confronting the industry a centerpiece of their bids, have raised relative pittances from Wall Streeters. Warren has pulled in $214,000. And Sanders's collections from Wall Street have been so meager, the sector doesn't crack his top 20 source of funds.

One Democratic lobbyist for financial services interests said he cut a check to Buttigieg as a sort of insurance policy against Warren in case Biden stumbles. "I don't want Warren to just be in a position of chasing. I want her to be chased as well," he said. "I want to put pressure on her with a credible alternative . . . I don't think Wall Street has a real great sense of what Mayor Pete might mean or not mean. But we do know what Warren means, and so I want part of every story about her to also be about him moving in tandem up the line."

For those inclined to criticize Buttigieg's support from Wall Street, campaign spokesman Chris Meagher noted "similar criticisms were leveled against Barack Obama, and he went on to establish the most aggressive regulation of the financial sector that we'd seen in decades. Pete will do what is right for our country, and is running to move our country forward by leading with bold ideas that the American people can unify around."

"He is proud to have support from more than 600,000 people who have given everything from a couple of dollars online to the maximum contribution to his campaign," Meagher said in an email. "And he will use those resources to beat Donald Trump in November 2020." Buttigieg has defended his practice of attending high-dollar fundraisers on Wall Street and beyond by saying his campaign is "trying to reach everybody at every level."

The candidate's fundraising looks primed to continue benefiting from a contrast he is drawing with Warren, especially as the Massachusetts Democrat trades barbs with Wall Street titans. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon just entered that fray, telling CNBC that Warren "vilifies successful people."

"I don't like vilifying anybody," he said. "I think we should applaud successful people." JPMorgan employees have directed $39,890 to Buttigieg, making him the top recipient of the bank's giving, per the center. Warren has raised roughly $6,000 from JPMorgan workers, federal records show. She responded to Dimon on Twitter:

Warren is also in rhetorical firefight with billionaire hedge fund manager Leon Cooperman, who accused her of "s-ing" on the American dream, prompting her to respond he is only concerned about protecting his fortune.

And former Obama Treasury official Steven Rattner, who now manages Michael Bloomberg's wealth, writes in a New York Times op-ed that a Warren presidency is a "terrifying prospect" because she would "effectively abandoning the limited-government model that has mostly served us well." Rattner has contributed to a handful of more moderate Democratic presidential hopefuls, including Buttigieg, Biden, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Sen. Michael Bennett, D-Colo.

Buttigieg's list of donors reads in part like a who's who of Wall Street heavy hitters. It includes: William Ackman, billionaire founder of Pershing Square Capital; Roger Altman, a former deputy treasury secretary and founder and senior chairman of the investment banking firm Evercore; Richard M. Cashin, founder of private equity firm One Equity Partners; Jonathan Gray, the billionaire president of Blackstone Group; billionaire hedge fund manager Marc Lasry, CEO of Avenue Capital Group; billionaire investor Daniel Ziff; Allen & Company investment banker Stanley Shuman; and Robert Wolf, a Wall Street fundraiser for Obama and founder of investment advisory firm 32 Advisors.

Warren has proposed a slate of legal and regulatory changes that threaten major financiers. She has called for breaking up the big banks; fundamentally remaking the private equity industry; and imposing a 2 percent wealth tax on households with more than $50 million, and a 6 percent tax on wealth above a billion dollars.

Buttigieg's plans are fuzzier. Under a section on his campaign site labeled "Consumer Protections," he calls for overhauling federal arbitration law to allow consumers to sue credit card companies in court; passing "strict regulations on predatory lenders;" and reviving the enforcement authority of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, among others.