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Billionaire Democratic donors, including Barry Diller and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, are reportedly pausing donations to the party's main fundraising committee amid a "broad consensus" that it's "ineffectual," sources with knowledge of the situation told the New York Post.
The report comes days after Diller, who recently released his memoir Who Knew criticizing former President Joe Biden's administration, personally told the New York Post that he had "no intention of donating" to the Democratic National Committee "for a variety of reasons."
Bloomberg is also reported to be wary of donating to the DNC again, while hedge-fund manager Marc Lasry claimed he would ultimately give to the DNC again but didn't specify when that would continue. Bloomberg was reported to have donated $413,00 to the DNC during the 2023-24 election cycle, while Diller donated $330,400 and Lasry gave $133,400.
Last week, a source with knowledge of the situation telling the New York Post that the DNC was reportedly cash-strapped and borrowing money while losing big donors and "f**ked" ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
“We are six months in and we’re drowning,” the source said. “The RNC was so cash-heavy and hitting us day after day after day when Biden was president.
“We have no clear path or plan,” they added. “The midterms are going to come before we know it, and then we’re going to be really f**ked.”
The Democratic National Committee's reported struggles come amid fighting among top officials after David Hogg left the committee, choosing not to run for reelection as vice chair amid backlash after he attempted to primary "out of touch, ineffective" incumbents in Congress, USA TODAY reports.
Hogg, 25, announced that his group, Leaders We Deserve, would donate $20 million to fund young progressive candidates who would challenge veteran incumbents in historically liberal districts in April. DNC chairman Ken Martin, however, urged officers to remain neutral in primary elections, which resulted in Hogg being given the ultimatum to resign from the committee or leave Leaders We Deserve.
The DNC voted to redo the election that made Hogg and Pennsylvania State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta vice chairs on June 11 due to a procedural squabble prior to Hogg announcing that he wouldn't run for vice chair again and, instead, intended to focus on Leaders We Deserve in a post shared on his X account.
"This culture simply will not change by only focusing on open seats or just throwing half a billion dollars into 30 competitive House seats. We must change the culture of our party that has brought us here and if there is anything activism or history teaches us it's that comfortable people, especially comfortable people with power, do not change," he wrote.
Hogg gained notoriety as one of the most outspoken Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting survivors against gun violence since 2018.
“I came into this role to play a positive role in creating the change our party needs. It is clear that there is a fundamental disagreement about the role of a Vice Chair — and it's okay to have disagreements. What isn’t okay is allowing this to remain our focus when there is so much more we need to be focused on,” he added in a followup post.