Democratic donors threaten to stop if Joe Biden doesn’t step down

Many major Democratic donors, including Disney heiress Abigail Disney, have said they will withhold donations to the party until President Joe Biden drops his reelection bid.

The move represents a major escalation within the donor class. Calls for Biden to resign are growing after his performance in last week’s debate raised serious questions about his fitness for the job. Biden has insisted he is fit to run and will remain in the race.

Abigail Disney said in a statement to CNBC that she intends to “cease all contributions to the party unless and until they replace Biden as the leader of the ticket.”

“This is realism, not disrespect,” she added. “Biden is a good man and has served his country admirably, but the stakes are far too high.”

Disney, whose grandfather co-founded The Walt Disney Co., said that “if Biden does not resign, the Democrats will lose. I am absolutely certain of that. The consequences of that defeat will be truly disastrous.”

Many donors currently withholding funds say they respect Biden, but the prospect of four more years of Trump in office is too terrifying to allow politics to continue as usual.

A group of Democratic donors opposed to Biden’s candidacy are trying to raise $100 million through the newly formed Next Generation PAC, which would go to whoever replaces President Biden. If Biden remains on the ticket, the group said it would give the money to runners-up, The New York Times reported.

Gideon Stein, a Democratic Party member and donor, told the Times that his family is holding back $3.5 million in donations until Biden passes the torch to a successor.

Another Democratic donor, Hollywood producer Damon Lindelof, wrote an essay in Deadline encouraging big benefactors like him to stop giving money to Democrats to force Biden’s hand.

“I fell asleep at the wheel and it’s time to wake up,” he wrote.

“It’s the checks that get us into the room where this is happening. I wish it weren’t true. I wish it was strength of character or viability of ideas. But they are checks. Checks at every level,” he wrote of party donations.

Lindelof proposed what he called a “DEMbargo.” “No checks were written. No ActBlue links were clicked. For anyone,” he wrote, comparing the situation to the United States sanctioning a foreign country that “doesn’t behave the way we want them to.”

While many donors are now calling for Biden to step down, not everyone agrees on who should replace him. Some are calling for an open Democratic convention. Disney told CNBC it would like to see Vice President Kamala Harris nominated.

“We have a great vice president. If Democrats were tolerant of her perceived flaws, even a tenth less than Biden’s (and let’s not kid ourselves about the role of race and gender in this inequality) and if Democrats could find a way to stop dithering and rally behind her, we could win this election by a landslide,” she said.