The Wall Street donor class used to rule elections; today not a lot, though the fat-cat money men (and ladies) can have an outsized role in only how long Nikki Haley stays in her race against GOP front-runner Donald Trump.
In Haley’s somewhat strange quest for the GOP nomination, she needs big money greater than votes from the party’s rank and file. It helps her stay within the race long enough to hope Trump face-plants in a way that makes her the nominee, possibly without winning a single state, consultants near her admit.
Haley’s dilemma, after all, is that she’s a moderate in a populist party. The old country-club-types, Wall Street execs and free-marketeers at the moment are a back-bench caucus. Donald Trump’s MAGA movement has converted the GOP base to “blue” — as in blue-collar, anti-globalist, and definitely not Wall Street-friendly.
He funds his campaign together with his own (allegedly) enormous wealth but mostly through contributions from these base voters and the equivalent of free ads buys, intense media coverage each time he says something crazy.
Candidates like Haley need money from the non-populist but still cash-rich fat-cat minority to compete and hopefully outlast The Donald.
Will it work? I even have my doubts. Sure, she has a slew of fundraisers arrange in the approaching weeks. She claims her super PAC raised around $50 million within the second half of 2023, surpassing Trump’s large haul.
The large-money donor class seems to love Haley’s pitch that she matches one-on-one against Biden higher than Trump because independents won’t vote for somebody more likely to be a convicted felon. In spite of everything those indictments, Trump could well be in jail in a number of months. They need to keep her in play and wait for his inevitable downfall.
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But all her money hasn’t moved the needle with GOP voters. She has lost the Iowa caucuses and the Recent Hampshire primary to Trump, and if the polling is correct, she’s a loser in her home state of South Carolina in February. Not exactly an amazing start for somebody who eventually desires to be president.
Plus, Wall Street will soon demand a return on its investment. Fat-cat money comes with a number of strings. That’s where Haley’s best strength could soon grow to be her biggest weakness.
Remember, base voters don’t care if Trump governs from a jail cell, every GOP poll shows. Additionally they think Trump will crush Biden. Big-money donors see those polls and so they’re getting nervous. Several have already pulled away from Haley. Others like Home Depot founder and legendary financier Ken Langone are warning they’re not throwing money away on a losing ticket if it looks like Haley can’t win in her home state — or any state, for that matter.
And if Langone pulls out, the remaining will follow.
Again, Haley says she’s in it to the bitter end — but so did Ron DeSantis. Last Sunday, citing big donors, I reported on X that because Trump’s lead was so insurmountable, the one-time GOP front-runner was on the verge of dropping out.
“Now we have already refuted,” his campaign spokesman emailed me. DeSantis was in it to the tip, angling for a two-person race with Trump after Haley gets trounced in her home state and drops out, the rep further assured.
Lower than three hours later, DeSantis announced his campaign was over. The rationale? He was in it until his big-money donors told him they weren’t going to throw their money away on a losing effort.
Like DeSantis, in some unspecified time in the future Haley goes to need to win a state. If she doesn’t, her “in it till the tip” moment will conclude the identical way as his — and possibly earlier than she even knows.
The brand new ‘Silverback’
Should you haven’t noticed, the old “Silverback” leading the meme-stock army isn’t any longer AMC’s Adam Aron. As shares of AMC have declined greater than 99% from their highs, the theater chain’s loquacious (and sometimes pompous) CEO has gone largely silent.
Never fear, memesters, there appears to be a latest Silverback on the town: Bill Pulte, a scion of the famous Pulte home-building family.
The 35-year-old Pulte, the grandson of the corporate founder William J. Pulte, isn’t a part of the management of the family business any longer (he’s a big shareholder). Moderately, he has a personal equity shop, does a good amount of philanthropy, and has grow to be very energetic on social media, spouting off to his 3 million-plus X followers on various subjects including defending meme investors who got slaughtered because the craze fizzled.
The query is why? Pulte describes it as a part of philanthropy efforts. He says he’s looking “to get answers, to get transparency” from management about just what went fallacious.
Yes, the execs of those firms have their flaws (as I’ve reported on these pages), but they warned repeatedly concerning the speculative nature of their stocks. Meanwhile, the people Pulte says he’s defending selected to take the “advice” of pumpers on social media, including Reddit’s Wall Street Bets forum, touting the financially troubled AMC as a $1,000 stock, or shares of Bed Bath and Beyond as the subsequent Apple while it was about to be delisted and the corporate liquidated in bankruptcy.
Irrational exuberance on steroids, and never surprisingly, the memesters got crushed.
After I asked Pulte during an interview on Fox Business if he knew about all this, he seemed nonplussed. “Give me a reputation or something . . . I don’t know who that’s.” Later he said he knows there are pumpers on social media but needs a “specific name to carry accountable.”
Sounds a bit strange. My advice to Bill is, if he wants to seek out out who’s chargeable for meme losses, he must get more acquainted with Reddit and fully understand the practice of stock pumping.