Buttigieg releases list of campaign bundlers

Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign on Friday released the names of people who have raised at least $25,000 for his White House bid as the South Bend, Ind., mayor seeks to address calls for greater transparency surrounding his campaign’s finances.

Buttigieg’s camp released a list of around 150 people who have raised tens of thousands of dollars for his campaign, including Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), one of a small handful of Buttigieg supporters in Congress. Aides released the list as the mayor continues to face scrutiny from his 2020 rivals, chiefly Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), over his fundraising and work in the private sector.

“Pete’s campaign has been more transparent than any other campaign this cycle. In addition to releasing these names, which no other current campaign has done, Pete has also opened his fundraisers to the press. He has made public 12 years of tax returns, he has held three multi-day bus tours with reporters that were completely on the record, and he has committed to restoring daily press briefings in the White House,” his campaign said in a statement. 

Buttigieg had released the names of his bundlers — donors who raise large sums of money for candidates — earlier in the campaign, but stopped doing so in April, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and has since faced mounting calls to disclose further details about his finances. 

The Indiana Democrat announced this week that his campaign would open his high-dollar fundraisers to reporters and resume disclosing the names of campaign bundlers.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the only other top-tier candidate in the Democratic field to hold high-dollar fundraisers, has allowed press to attend those events since launching his campaign, while Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have shunned such events and do not have traditional bundler programs.

Buttigieg also faced pressure to release a list of the clients he worked with during his three-year stint at the consulting firm McKinsey & Co., which he ultimately did this week.

The firm has been a focus of scrutiny for progressive activists over their work for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Purdue Pharma, among other clients, though Buttigieg did no work for either group.

The pressure campaign against Buttigieg has emerged as an outgrowth from an ongoing spat with Warren, a favorite of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, that started largely over a debate regarding Warren’s “Medicare for All” plan. 

The Massachusetts Democrat was the first to promote calls for Buttigieg to make his fundraisers public and disclose his McKinsey clients, telling reporters, “I think the voters want to know about possible conflicts of interest.”