As the once crowded field of2020 Democratic presidential candidateskeeps getting smaller, one unexpected name endures..
Billionaire Tom Steyer has kept his campaign running into 2020, even recently polling high enough in two states to earn a spot in this week’s Democratic primary debate alongside the four front-runners: Former Vice PresidentJoe Biden, former Indiana mayorPete Buttigieg, Sen.Bernie Sandersand Sen.Elizabeth Warren.
(Other candidates with bigger name recognition faded more quickly, such as Sens.Cory BookerandKamala Harris.)
“This campaign has a fair bit of momentum right now,” Steyer said recently while campaigning in New Hampshire, according to theLos Angeles Times.
Steyer, who is worth an estimated $1.6 billion,according toForbes, largely from his previous investment career, has spent more on television ads for his campaign than all the other Democratic presidential candidates combined, outside of fellow billionaire and former New York City MayorMike Bloomberg.
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Steyer has also funded an aggressive campaign to raise support for impeaching PresidentDonald Trump.
And while Steyer has polled moderately well in some early states and continues to appear at the debates (unlike Bloomberg), he is not yet resonating more widely, even with his financial power.
Trump has dismissed the Democratic long-shot, in true Trump fashion, as a “weirdo.”
“Weirdo Tom Steyer doesn’t have the ‘guts’ or money to run for President,” Trumptweeted in March.
In addition to his 2020 campaign, Steyer has funded political groups such as the anti-Trump Need to Impeach and the progressive advocacy organization NextGen America.
He made much of his fortune as a hedge fund manager, founding the investment firm Farallon Capital in the mid-1980s.
Fox NewsreportedThursday that one poll in South Carolina showed Steyer in second behind Biden, at 15 percent.
Despite his extreme wealth, Steyer has criticized corporate influence on politics, building his campaign around a promise to, in his words, push power back to American citizens.
“We have a society that’s really unequal,” he said in avideo announcing his campaignlast year. “It’s really important for people to understand that this society is connected. If this is a banana republic with a few very, very rich people and everybody else living in misery, that’s a failure.”
source: people.com
