In an email to supporters, Warren explained that instead of holding events specifically for wealthy donors, or offering them special seats or photo opportunities in exchange for donations, she will focus her time on local events and town halls. “My presidential-primary campaign will be run on the principle of equal access for anybody who joins it,” she wrote in the message, adding that the move will help her “build the kind of grassroots organization we need to win the general election.”

The pledge is somewhat imprecise: Warren will still accept checks from individual wealthy donors up to the legal maximum of $2,800, and her rules won’t preclude her from holding other fundraisers—just not the kind with a high financial barrier to entry. And she’s left herself an out for the general election, writing in her email to supporters that if she becomes the nominee, she’ll “do what is necessary” to match Republicans financially.

But at least for the next year, Warren is cutting off a funding stream that’s likely more lucrative for candidates than the one from corporate PACs is. That’s primarily because corporate-PAC contributions typically don’t constitute a big portion of candidates’ funding. Disavowing corporate PAC money is an easier promise for them to make, simply because it isn’t likely to cost them much. In a primary race, “corporate PAC money is trivial,” said Andrew Mayersohn, a researcher at the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), a nonpartisan group that tracks the effects of money on public policy. By contrast, funding “from big donors is always going to be in the millions.”

Read: Why so many Democrats are shunning corporate PACs

It’s hard to say exactly how much of a financial hit Warren will take. She has reportedly already had some trouble achieving her online fundraising targets. But aides estimate that, as Mayersohn suggested, she’ll be leaving “millions” on the table.



They aren’t necessarily exaggerating. Presidential candidates can raise massive amounts of cash at high-dollar fundraisers like the ones Warren is avoiding. Spending an evening dining with Hillary Clinton at the Studio City, California, home of George and Amal Clooney, for example, cost supporters $100,000 a couple during the 2016 primary. Raising $27,000 got supporters of the Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush access to a private reception and a two-day retreat at the Bush-family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine. At first blush, these entry fees would seem to defy campaign-finance limits. But it’s perfectly legal to hold these kinds of highbrow, high-dollar fundraisers if the proceeds are going to a joint-fundraising committee—which means that the money raised from the event is divided among multiple candidates, committees, and/or political-action committees.

The pledge isn’t that much of a leap for Warren, because she wasn’t doing a lot of high-dollar fundraising to begin with. While she has an extensive donor network and has taken part in donor calls in the past, she hasn’t had one since announcing her exploratory bid in December. And she invested more in direct-mail outreach and online fundraising than she did in in-person fundraising events in the last election cycle, according to the CRP. “It’s totally possible [that Warren’s campaign] determined that holding these fundraisers is not a good use of her time anyway, so why not get some good PR out of this?” Mayersohn said. Steve Israel, the former New York representative and former chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told me Warren’s decision was “commendable,” but added, “I’m not sure she would do it if she didn’t assess that it puts her at a strategic advantage.”