Bernie Sanders is the least popular candidate among oligarchs and is getting the smallest percentage of his donations from big donors. The corporate media are not fans.

But Pete Buttigieg, who has soared to fourth place behind Biden, Sanders, and Warren in national polls, and first place in polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, was -- even before his rise in the polls -- receiving big support from billionaires and other large donors, and from corporate media outlets.

Oligarchy Confidence Index

As of November 18, when Forbes last published an article based on data from the Federal Elections Commission, the following candidates still in the race had received direct funding from this number of billionaires:

Cory Booker: 45
Joe Biden: 44
Pete Buttigieg: 39
Michael Bennet: 32
Amy Klobuchar: 21
John Delaney: 10
Tom Steyer: 9
Elizabeth Warren: 6
Andrew Yang: 4
Julian Castro: 2
Marianne Williamson: 2
Tulsi Gabbard: 1
Bernie Sanders: 0

(Forbes had reported a small donation from one billionaire to Bernie Sanders, but his campaign told Forbes they were returning it as a matter of established policy.)

As reported by the Center for Responsive Politics (OpenSecrets.org), these candidates get the following percentage of their direct funding from donors giving $200 or more (omits Tom Steyer and John Delaney who have thus far mostly funded their own campaigns):

Joe Biden: 64.89%
Cory Booker: 61.36%
Michael Bennet: 57.63%
Pete Buttigieg: 52.5%
Amy Klobuchar: 47.88%
Marianne Williamson: 37.36%
Julian Castro: 34.3%
Andrew Yang: 33.91%
Elizabeth Warren: 29.6%
Tulsi Gabbard: 25.74%
Bernie Sanders: 24.9%

Corporate Media Confidence Index

On November 13, In These Times published a study of MSNBC's reporting in August and September on the three presidential candidates leading in the polls: Sanders, Biden, and Warren. The network talked about Biden twice as much as Warren and three times as much as Sanders. While quantity may matter the most, type of coverage makes a difference. This percentage of the reports on these candidates were positive:

Warren 30.6%
Sanders 12.9%
Biden 11.3%

This percentage of the reports on these candidates were negative:

Sanders 20.7%
Biden 11%
Warren 7.9%

On September 12, 2019, right-wing outlet News Busters noted that ABC News was hosting a debate with candidates who qualified in part on the basis of polls, but that ABC News had told its viewers almost nothing about those candidates. These had been the minutes of reporting on each candidate between January 1 and August 31, omitting candidates no longer running:

Joe Biden: 68
Elizabeth Warren: 12
Pete Buttigieg: 7
Bernie Sanders: 7
Cory Booker: 4
Amy Klobuchar: 3
Andrew Yang: 0.03

On November 20th, the New York Times added up the minutes candidates had spoken in the most recent televised debate. Here are those for candidates still in the race:

Warren: 13:29
Buttigieg: 12:56
Biden: 12:48
Sanders: 11:47
Booker: 11:32
Klobuchar: 10:58
Gabbard: 9:12
Steyer: 8:24
Yang: 6:48

Who Is Pete Buttigieg?

Billionaires are funding Buttigieg directly and they could increase their funding through political action committees. For example, Jennifer Pritzker, a Hyatt heiress, backed Trump last time, dumping $250,000 into committees associated with his campaign. This time, she's funding Buttigieg.

Buttigieg's billionaires include IAC chairman Barry Diller and oil baron Len Blavatnik’s wife, Emily. Buttigieg has had events hosted for him by billionaires, including Blackstone Group executive vice chairman Hamilton James, and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. Buttigieg has consulted with Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg on whom to hire for his campaign. Buttigieg has hired a former Goldman Sachs executive as his policy director.

Nest Labs co-founder Matt Rogers, and Chelsea Kohler, director of product communications at Uber, have hosted Buttigieg fundraisers. He's funded by a number of top Facebook executives, as well as Scott Belsky, chief product officer at Adobe, and Wendy Schmidt, the wife of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

Fox News Founder Rupert Murdoch's billionaire son James Murdoch supports Buttigieg. Hedge fund oligarch Paul Tudor Jones is also a big fan.

Buttigieg worked for three years for the secretive corporate consulting firm McKinsey and Company, where Buttigieg has said he worked on "economic stability" in "war zones." When he ran for mayor in South Bend, Indiana, according to the Center for Public Integrity, his "earliest big-dollar campaign bankrollers include numerous lobbyists and prospective government contractors interested in doing business with South Bend."

Early this year Buttigieg claimed to support single-payer health coverage. As the big money rolled in, he decided that he was against it, and he's used misleading insurance industry talking points to denounce it. Buttigieg has recently also expressed his support for the Paygo philosophy of corporate Democrats, meaning in effect that non-military spending must be restricted. Buttigieg is funded by the financial industry and the technology industry. He says what they want to hear. But we don't always get to hear what that is, as some of his fundraising events are totally closed-door, secret affairs.

Many in the corporate oligarchy are finding in Buttigieg a backup plan for the obviously deeply flawed candidate, Joe Biden. The rest of us should not be fooled.

Further Reading:

>> Forbes: "Here Are The Billionaires Funding The Democratic Presidential Candidates"
>> New York Times: "Which Candidates Got the Most Speaking Time in the Democratic Debate"
>> In These Times: "MSNBC Is the Most Influential Network Among Liberals—And It’s Ignoring Bernie Sanders"
>> News Busters: "Debate Host ABC News Has Ignored Most 2020 Democrats This Year"
>> Norman Solomon: "The Class Warfare of Billionaires Against Sanders and Warren"
>> RootsAction: "We want Medicare for All. Not healthcare profiteering for the few"
>> Norman Solomon: "Beware, Pete Buttigieg Is a Sharp Corporate Tool"
>> Fortune: "Pete Buttigieg Takes Lead as Big Business Candidate in 2020 Field"
>> CNBC: "Hedge fund titan Paul Tudor Jones is apparently a fan of presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg"
>> Center for Public Integrity: "Meet the lobbyists and special interests who helped launch Pete Buttigieg’s political career"
>> BuzzFeed: "Pete Buttigieg’s Work At McKinsey Is A Secret"