From Finance to Hollywood, Donors Give to Trump Challengers

(Bloomberg) -- Much attention has been given to the importance of small-dollar donors to the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates. Many of the candidates, too, boast that they’re not interested in money from corporate political action committees.

Turns out, thousands of high-dollar contributors have had no trouble getting their checks -- often for the $2,800 primary-election maximum -- cashed. They include celebrities as well as others with top posts in finance, media, technology, sports and entertainment.

Movie mogul and longtime political donor Jeffrey Katzenberg is among them. While many donors prefer to wait for the historically crowded field of Democratic candidates to fully form and eventually shrink, Katzenberg has decided not to choose. He’s instead spreading his money around by giving $2,800 to three White House hopefuls: senators Kamala Harris of California, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.

These are among the many details found in the first-quarter Federal Election Commission disclosures filed this week by the 2020 presidential candidates.

The filings do show a dearth of major financial-industry donors in the first quarter. That probably reflects this year’s crop of Democratic presidential candidates wanting to keep Wall Street, possibly more so than other corporate special interests, at arm’s length.

But that hasn’t stopped Booker from taking $2,800 from Orin Kramer, a hedge-fund manager and major check-bundler for numerous Democrats in the past. Kramer was an early supporter of Barack Obama in 2008.

Anna Wintour seems to have taken an early shine to former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke, who has received $2,800 from the Vogue editor-in-chief. And actress Reese Witherspoon maxed out to Gillibrand.

More below from FEC disclosures and Bloomberg research on some of those who have given $2,800 for the primary campaign.

--With assistance from Anousha Sakoui.

To contact the reporters on this story: Bill Allison in Washington at ballison14@bloomberg.net;John McCormick in Chicago at jmccormick16@bloomberg.net;Mark Niquette in Columbus at mniquette@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net, Paula Dwyer, Laurie Asséo

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