Swalwell Abandons Race, Seeks House Re-Election: Campaign Update

(Bloomberg) -- Eric Swalwell announced Monday that he’s exiting the presidential contest and will be seeking re-election to his House seat.

The California congressman, who focused his campaign on toughening gun control, dropped out after just three months.

“Today ends our presidential campaign,” he said in Dublin, California. He said his goal was to win and that his candidacy hadn’t been “a vanity project” or a means “to write a book.”

Swalwell said that while he moved the needle among Democrats on gun control and buying back military-style assault weapons, he didn’t see a path to victory.

“Being honest with ourselves, we had to look at how much money we were raising, where we were in the polls,” Swalwell said. “We have to be honest about our own candidacy’s viability.”

He wouldn’t say whom he would endorse in the presidential race.

“If Megan Rapinoe gets in the race I’m probably going to endorse her,” he said, referring to the captain of the U.S. women’s soccer team, which won the World Cup Sunday.

Impeachment Advocate Steyer Weighs 2020 Bid (3:50 p.m.)

Billionaire hedge fund manager and impeachment maven Tom Steyer may be thinking -- yet again -- about getting into the presidential race.

If he does run, he could already have a leg up on Democrats in Iowa: He’s spent more on TV there than the rest of the field of more than 20 candidates combined.

The Need to Impeach PAC -- which is almost entirely financed by Steyer -- has spent more than $445,000 in the Des Moines television market alone, according to a Bloomberg analysis of television station files. The group’s commercials often feature Steyer making the case for President Donald Trump to be removed from office.

With seven months before the first caucuses, only two other Democratic candidates have paid for television time in Des Moines: former Representative John Delaney of Maryland ($188,000) and Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii ($8,550).

Several news outlets -- including The Atlantic and the Washington Post -- reported that Steyer told allies that he could announce a run as soon as Tuesday.

A note of caution: Steyer hinted at a run a 2020 run early this year, but showed up in Des Moines only to announce he had decided against it.

“I’m not going to run for president right now,” he told a Des Moines audience in January. “I am going to spend 100% of my time working to impeach and remove this president.”
-- Gregory Kortke

Elizabeth Warren’s Fundraising Jumps to $19M (2 p.m.)

Small donors vaulted Elizabeth Warren into third place in the Democratic presidential money race, giving further proof of her momentum as she rises in the polls.

Warren’s campaign manager Roger Lau said Monday that the Massachusetts senator raised $19.1 million in the second quarter of 2019, trailing South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg and former Vice President Joe Biden, but ahead of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Warren was in fifth place in the first quarter.

The second quarter funds came from 384,000 people, who made more than 683,000 donations, with the average contribution amount of $28, Lau said. More than 80% of the donors gave for the first time in the last three months, he added.

“You’re making it possible to build a presidential campaign without catering to wealthy donors -- with no closed-door fundraisers, no super PACs, and no money from Washington lobbyists, corporate PACs, or, for that matter, PACs of any kind,” Lau said in an email to supporters.

Warren topped the $18 million raised by Sanders, who’s also sworn off in-person events in favor of an online fundraising strategy. Both candidates are competing for support from the party’s progressive wing, with promises to make profound changes to the nation’s economic policies.

Warren’s intake compared with Buttigieg’s surprise $24.8 million haul after beginning his campaign with little name recognition. Biden raised $21.5 million since entering the race in late April.

Buttigieg and Biden have gotten support from Democratic bundlers, the well-connected individuals who can arrange closed-door events with large numbers of donors who write $2,800 checks, the maximum donation a campaign can accept. Both candidates also make appeals to online donors as well.

The small-dollar fundraising numbers offer evidence of who is generating excitement among the party’s grassroots supporters. While Biden remains the front-runner in the race, his support has slipped in several surveys since the first debates at the end of June. Warren, meanwhile, has gained on both Biden and Sanders, No. 1 and 2 in the early polling, after a strong performance in the June 26 debate.

California Senator Kamala Harris, who reported raising more than $11 million in the second quarter, has also seen her poll numbers rise after her performance on the debate stage.

Warren’s fundraising surged from the $6 million she raised in the first quarter, when she spent $5.2 million, including the salaries of more than 170 staff members. Warren’s campaign said that she ended June with $19.7 million cash on hand, less than $100,000 of which is restricted for the general election.

Candidates are due to report second-quarter totals to the Federal Election Commission officially on July 15. Some campaigns voluntarily announce the amount they raised ahead of the deadline as a demonstration of their support outside of polls.

The Democratic National Committee has placed increased emphasis on collecting cash from a large number of donors from widespread parts of the country. One of the criteria for qualifying for the first two sets of debates was securing donations from 65,000 individuals, with at least 200 in 20 different states. That number increases to 130,000 for the debates to be held in September.

As Democrats fight for dollars in a crowded primary field of more than 20 candidates, President Donald Trump is building a large financial advantage to prepare for the general election. His campaign manager said Tuesday that Trump’s re-election campaign and the Republican National Committee combined to raise $105 million during the second quarter and had $100 million in cash on hand. -- Bill Allison and Sahil Kapur

Swalwell Sets News Conference as Bid Falters (11:53 a.m.)

Eric Swalwell’s struggling campaign has scheduled a news conference for 1 p.m. Pacific time at his northern California headquarters, feeding speculation about whether he will stay in the crowded Democratic presidential race.

The California congressman has struggled to raise money or gain traction in the polls. He made the cut for the first debate in late June, but his prospects for qualifying for the second debate later this month in Detroit have been in doubt.

Swalwell has focused on gun control in his campaign, going further than rivals by calling for the government to outlaw and “buy back” military-style assault weapons. A deputy of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he’s been active in House investigations of President Donald Trump, and is a fixture on cable TV. -- Sahil Kapur

Trump Touts Green Leadership. Critics Cry Foul (9:55 a.m.)

Donald Trump plans to tout U.S. environmental progress in a speech today as polls show many voters think climate change is a major issue in 2020.

It’s familiar terrain for Trump, who frequently boasts that the U.S. has the “cleanest” air and water -- sometimes drawing comparisons to “dirty,” pollution-choked cities in China and South America.

He can point to U.S. strides in cleaning up its air, with a key pollution measure dropping 73% from 1970 to 2017 -- even though the economy grew more than 260% in the same time. Yet environmental advocates say the gains were driven by decades-old federal clean air and water rules -- the very rules Trump is now working to undermine.

One bit of bad news for Trump: carbon dioxide emissions that drive climate change are rising again, after generally falling since 2005. There was a 2.7% uptick in greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion in 2018, the second-largest annual increase since 2000, according to a report from the Rhodium Group LLC.

Trump made cutting back environmental regulation a signature issue on the campaign trail in 2016 and moved aggressively once in the White House. He directed the Interior Department to resume selling coal on federal land and began easing limits on oil well releases of methane, a super-potent greenhouse gas. Trump also kept his promise to abandon the Paris climate accord -- a global pact to pare greenhouse gas emissions.

“It’s absurd for President Trump to claim any environmental credentials when his administration continues to drive a destructive pro-polluter agenda at the expense of the American people,” said Jill Tauber, vice president of litigation, climate and energy at Earthjustice.

At the White House event Monday, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler is expected to highlight reductions in conventional air pollutants, rapid remediation of Superfund sites and the inclusion of environmental provisions in the renegotiated North American trade agreement.
-- Jennifer A. Dlouhy

CNN to Pick July Democratic Debate Lineup Live (8:22 a.m.)

Networks broadcast the NFL draft and the brackets for the NCAA’s March Madness, so why not debate lineups?
CNN announced Monday morning that it will broadcast a live drawing to select the lineups for two nights of Democratic presidential primary debates on July 30 and July 31. The network will carry the second pair of debates from Detroit.

As the first debates from Miami showed, the lineups matter: Kamala Harris was on stage with Joe Biden for her breakout moment challenging him on busing, a brief exchange that has reverberated for almost two weeks.

Likewise, Elizabeth Warren was the only top-five candidate on stage the first night, allowing her to dominate the event.

The drawing will be aired on CNN on July 18 in the 8 p.m. hour, the network said. The 20 candidates invited to participate in one of the July debates will be notified by the Democratic National Committee and CNN on the evening of July 17. -- Craig Gordon

Biden’s Apology Tour Draws Fire From Trump (6 a.m.)

Joe Biden spent the weekend apologizing for his remarks about his civil relationships with segregationist senators in the hopes of putting the issue behind him. President Donald Trump wasn’t ready to let it go.

“Sleepy Joe Biden just admitted he worked with segregationists,” tweeted Trump, who himself is often accused of using racially charged rhetoric and would love to make the issue a wash with independent voters in a face-off with Biden. One day earlier, Trump called Biden a “reclamation project” who “Won’t win!”

Despite his missteps, Biden remains the party’s front-runner and is seen by many Democrats as the safest bet to defeat Trump. That perception was reinforced Sunday by a Washington Post-ABC News poll that found Biden is the only top-tier Democrat clearly leading Trump in hypothetical general-election match-ups. Biden led Trump by 10 points among registered voters, while Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg were all statistically tied with the president.

Biden on Sunday rejected the idea that a debate confrontation with Harris, who excoriated his “hurtful” remarks, led voters to question his ability to take on Trump. “Not the polls I’ve seen today,” he said in Charleston, South Carolina.

Biden said Saturday that he’s “sorry for any pain” his remarks may have caused, 18 days after he spoke wistfully at a fundraiser about working with senators like James O. Eastman in the 1970s, despite their disagreements. The day after his June 18 comments, he scoffed at the idea of apologizing and absorbed some blows in his quest to be the standard-bearer of a party that is mobilized around combating racism.

Biden’s support slipped from 32.4% to 26% in the RealClearPolitics average of Democratic polls, though he’s still almost 11 points ahead of Harris in second place.

Harris, Buttigieg and other Democrats said they appreciated Biden’s words, but not everyone was ready to move on. “This is an important statement but would have been better weeks ago — or maybe on the debate stage!” tweeted David Axelrod, a former strategist for President Barack Obama, whom Biden often name-checks on the stump. “It shouldn’t take weeks to land.” -- Sahil Kapur and Jennifer Epstein

Coming Up This Week:

Several Democratic presidential contenders plan to speak Thursday at the annual meeting of the League of United Latin American Citizens, a Hispanic civil rights group, in Milwaukee.

They include Sanders, Warren, Julián Castro, Beto O’Rourke, John Delaney and Marianne Williamson. Jill Biden will also speak. All are eying the votes of the growing Hispanic constituency.

One hot topic is immigration, which looms large over the 2020 primaries and general election, particularly after multiple reports about deaths of asylum-seeking migrants and poor conditions at detention centers.

Here’s What Happened Sunday:

• Michigan Representative Justin Amash, who announced last week he’s leaving the Republican Party, said Sunday he “wouldn’t rule out” a run as a third-party presidential candidate. Before leaving the GOP, Amash became the only Republican member of Congress to call for Trump’s impeachment. He said on CNN Sunday that for now he plans to seek re-election to the House as an independent.
• Trump’s approval rating has risen to the highest point of his presidency in the Washington Post-ABC News, aided by the strong U.S. economy. Still, Americans have doubts about the president. His approval rating was at 44% in the poll, up from 39% in April, with 53% of U.S. adults saying they disapprove of him.

State of the Race:

• Ten Democratic candidates laid out their plans for increasing funding for public schools as they made a pitch for support from the National Education Association, the nation’s biggest union. Amy Klobuchar, Julian Castro, Kamala Harris, Jay Inslee, Bernie Sanders, Beto O’Rourke, Bill de Blasio, Tim Ryan and Elizabeth Warren addressed the NEA’s conference in Houston. Teachers are a key constituency for Democrats in the primary and general elections.

--With assistance from Jennifer Epstein, Jennifer A. Dlouhy, Bill Allison and Gregory Korte.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sahil Kapur in Washington at skapur39@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Max Berley

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