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2020 Democrats Face a Vexing Issue: Big Money From the Rich

Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey counts more billionaire potential financiers as friends or allies than many other potential candidates for the 2020 Democratic nomination.Credit...Elizabeth Frantz for The New York Times

It is one of the most potent and feared weapons in the arsenal of modern American politics: the super PAC.

But as three dozen Democrats ponder presidential runs in 2020 and begin to design their campaign infrastructures, some leading names beyond Senator Bernie Sanders are expected to forgo or disavow these fund-raising committees that allow allies to haul unlimited sums from wealthy backers. The hope of these potential candidates is that grass-roots donors and progressive activists would reward them more handsomely in the primary for rejecting such funds.

If she runs, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts is likely to reject the assistance of a super PAC, according to two people familiar with her thinking. And the former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. revealed in a little-noticed passage in his 2017 book that he would have gone without one if he had run in 2016, making it more difficult for him to backtrack now.

The question is a politically vexing one. The financial firepower would be alluring to those with a ready network of financiers, such as Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, who is seen as likely to have a super PAC, according to donors, strategists and people close to him. Some allies are already discussing possible super PACs for Senators Kamala Harris of California and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, the two most Democratic donor-rich states in the nation. But aides to both of them say they are not currently seeking these fund-raising vehicles.

The choice will represent one of the earliest and potentially more consequential crossroads of the nascent primary, and has been the subject of fierce debate within the inner circles of some candidates. Is it worth giving up possible seven-figure checks for the chance to campaign more effectively as the candidate of the little guy? Or, put another way, can a Democrat risk embracing millionaires and billionaires in an era when small donors and the party’s seemingly ascendant left wing may pummel PAC-backed candidates as allies of the rich?

“Every Democrat should approach the idea of a super PAC in the primary with caution,” said Robby Mook, who served as the 2016 campaign manager for Hillary Clinton. “They are a liability as much as a strength.”

It’s no secret why these political action committees can be so appealing. Federal law currently caps contributions for presidential primary campaigns at $2,700. Campaign cash in 2020 is expected to be tight in what could be a historically crowded field. In contrast, donors face no limits with super PACs.

But opposition to big money has become a galvanizing force in Democratic politics. Democrats such as Representative Beto O’Rourke, the failed Texas Senate candidate now mulling a 2020 run, have turned their rejection of corporate and PAC funds into a tidal wave of small-dollar donations. Mr. Sanders inveighed against the influence of big money and raised more than $230 million in 2016.

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Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York has deep relationships with home-state donors who could finance a campaign, but she has also invested in creating a digital network of small donors.Credit...Erin Schaff for The New York Times

The risk for any 2020 Democrat is that reliance on a billionaire-backed super PAC becomes a litmus test of liberal credibility as a reformer.

“If you’re depending on a super PAC to succeed in the primary,” Mr. Mook warned, “you’re probably losing.”

The laws governing these committees are complex. Candidates do not formally create or control them, giving contenders some rhetorical wiggle room to disavow them while still benefiting from them. Other politicians send signals to big donors by keeping a top strategist walled off from the campaign who then starts a super PAC, which all but declares it an authorized endeavor. That, for example, is what Jeb Bush did in the 2016 race, as supporters poured in $120 million, more than was donated to any other PAC backing a candidate.

Though super PACs aligned with particular candidates played major roles in the 2012 and 2016 Republican nomination fights, Democrats have not held a wide-open presidential primary featuring multiple, big, candidate-specific super PACs since the Supreme Court unshackled such spending in 2010.

Strategists inside multiple potential 2020 operations described active discussions on the big money conundrum. Some call the notion of skipping out on one foolish. Others, even within the orbit of the same candidate, disagree sharply on the risks and rewards. What if one of the billionaire candidates — the financier Tom Steyer, Howard Schultz of Starbucks or the former New York City mayor Michael R. Bloomberg — gets in? What if your candidate wins an early state but fund-raising doesn’t pick up fast enough to buy the ads needed by Super Tuesday or in a state like California that has jumped earlier on the primary calendar?

“You have to know you have the big donors ready to write those checks,” Julianna Smoot, a former top fund-raiser and deputy campaign manager for Barack Obama, said of the decision to bless a super PAC.

Mr. Biden wrote in his 2017 book that he thought through the super PAC question carefully as he considered a 2016 run, saying it was “tempting to play the game.”

“For the first time in all my years of campaigning, I knew there was big money out there for me,” he wrote. “But I also knew people were sick of it all.”

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Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont refused support from super PACs during his 2016 presidential run.Credit...Sarah Silbiger/The New York Times

Perhaps no potential Democratic candidate counts more billionaire potential financiers as friends or allies than Mr. Booker, who attended Stanford and wooed investments from Silicon Valley when he was Newark mayor, including a $100 million donation for schools from Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook.

When Mr. Booker helped open a start-up years ago, investors included Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn. He also has close ties to the family of Donald Sussman, one of the party’s most generous givers. Mr. Booker officiated the wedding of one of Mr. Sussman’s daughters; another hosted a fund-raiser for him at her Hamptons home last summer.

Mr. Booker’s team declined to comment, though people close to him said no steps had been taken to create a super PAC.

Mark Longabaugh, a senior adviser to Mr. Sanders, said the Vermont senator would disavow any super PAC support if he runs, as he did in 2016. Mr. Longabaugh also cautioned that super PACs could “boomerang” against those who have them: “It will be an issue in the campaign.”

“You can’t on one hand oppose Citizens United and the corrupting influence of corrupting money,” Mr. Longabaugh said of the court decision that helped pave the way for super PACs, “and on the other hand take that money.”

The 2016 Republican primary showed just how fast money could flow into super PACs — in increments as large as $10 million. In that campaign, the super PACs aligned with Mr. Bush, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, Scott Walker, Bobby Jindal and Rick Perry all outraised the actual candidates themselves.

Those candidates had something else in common: They all lost.

The calculation can be complicated. Both Ms. Gillibrand and Ms. Harris, for instance, have deep relationships with home-state donors who could finance them. But both have also invested heavily in creating a digital network of small donors ahead of a possible run.

“At this point, Kirsten hasn’t made a decision on whether she will be a candidate for president, nor is she looking to create any outside spending if she does,” said Glen Caplin, a spokesman for Ms. Gillibrand.

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Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts is likely to reject the assistance of a super PAC should she run for president. Credit...T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times

Lily Adams, a spokeswoman for Ms. Harris, said much the same: “She has not decided whether she is running for president, but there are no plans for a super PAC for a prospective candidacy.”

There is ample gray area for politicians to explore or exploit, as super PACs, by definition, are formed independently, providing candidates some plausible deniability if and after they emerge.

For Ms. Harris, there have been discussions in California of a super PAC that would include two former top advisers to her past campaigns, Brian Brokaw and Dan Newman, according to people familiar with the matter.

For Ms. Gillibrand, Ross Offinger, a former fund-raiser for the New York senator, has quietly been reaching out to donors to feel out interest in a pro-Gillibrand super PAC, floating the name of Bill Hyers, who ran Ms. Gillibrand’s first campaign for the House in 2006 and served as Martin O’Malley’s campaign manager in 2016, according to a person familiar with the calls.

“We would discourage any activity of this type at this point,” Mr. Caplin said.

In some cases, strategists have floated the idea of delaying the creation of super PACs until deeper in the race to minimize blowback; of course, that risks donors deciding not to cut checks later.

In Texas, Mr. O’Rourke broadly denounced super PACs throughout his Senate bid, but some still got involved late to attack his Republican opponent. The outside spending did not seem to smudge the reputation of Mr. O’Rourke, who raised record sums online.

In 2012, Ms. Warren struck a deal with her Republican opponent to denounce super PACs and give away money to charity if they got involved. People close to her said that she is unlikely to seek super PAC assistance in 2020 and that she is unlikely to endorse any candidate who would if she does not run.

In Ohio, there is already a “Draft Sherrod Brown” effort in the works for the Democratic senator, organized by his former finance chairman, Michael Wager, and Nan Whaley, the mayor of Dayton. Mr. Wager said the effort could eventually become a pro-Brown super PAC.

Almost every would-be campaign has been quietly gauging donors on their level of commitment.

Guy Saperstein, a Democratic donor in California who publicly pledged $1 million for a pro-Warren super PAC in 2016 if she challenged Mrs. Clinton, said he had attended two recent dinners with Ms. Warren and he “had some feelers from some people associated with her” about if he would support her if she ran this time. (Mr. Saperstein said he had “begged” advisers to Mr. Sanders to set up a super PAC in 2016. They refused.)

Like so many donors, Mr. Saperstein is not ready to commit in 2020 — yet.

“I’ll probably give to Bernie and Elizabeth to start out the primaries,” he said. “Then I’ll sit back and wait to see how things develop.”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Unlimited Money Tempts Wary 2020 Democrats. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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