I don’t know whether Warren is making a strategic mistake or not by expanding her pledge against high dollar fundraising, but I think many of the analyses are leaving out a couple of key factors.
One is that some big donors dislike Warren and are less likely to be willing to write big checks. That might make high-dollar fundraisers a less efficient use of her time than with another nominee.
Another is that extreme political activation against Trump might make it easier to get big checks out of other donors, even if denied the pageantry or access they had been accustomed to.
A third (and this is in a lot of the analyses, but doesn’t get enough emphasis) is that meeting with and calling donors is a huge time suck and so you have to consider the benefit of whatever else she does with that time.
All this said, Democrats will need a ton of money, not just for a presidential campaign but for the national party and state parties, and maybe Warren’s choice to eschew certain fundraising tactics may be a mistake. I don’t think it’s obvious. There is one last thing...
Last quarter, she materially outraised Joe Biden, without doing any high-dollar events for herself. Are we sure *she’s* the one who puts the party in the weaker financial decision? She even has more dry powder, since she can still seek checks from all those Biden donors.
