Klobuchar releases names of bundlers

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) Friday released a list of campaign donors who have helped funnel at least $25,000 for her White House bid. 

The campaign posted on its website a list of more than 150 donors — people who have helped pool contributions from various individual donors — as 2020 contenders jostle to prove they’re being transparent about their campaign’s finances.

Among the high-profile donors included on the list are Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith (D), former Vice President Walter Mondale who also served as a Minnesota senator, and several ambassadors.

Klobuchar joins former Vice President Joe Biden, former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) in releasing the names of campaign bundlers.

Meanwhile Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), two top-tier candidates, do not have traditional bundler programs. The two progressives have also shunned high-dollar private fundraisers.

Campaign finances were pushed into the spotlight late last year by a feud between Buttigieg and Warren after the Massachusetts senator called for the former mayor to make his fundraisers public and disclose his past clients from his time working for the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. Buttigieg has since acceded to both demands. 

Several candidates have since followed suit, wary of being perceived by the party base that they are withholding information regarding their finances or are beholden to special interests.

While Klobuchar has trailed behind Biden, Sanders, Warren and Buttigieg in most national and early state polls, she has qualified for every primary debate thus far and has signs of building support in Iowa, which holds the first-in-the-nation caucus and neighbors Minnesota.