WASHINGTON -- Over the past few months, Harold Ickes, a longtime ally of Hillary Rodham Clinton, has helped organize private meetings around the country with union leaders, Clinton backers and Democratic strategists. The pressing topic: Who will step up to be the Democrats' megadonors in the 2016 presidential race?
Republican contenders have already secured hundreds of millions of dollars in commitments from a stable of billionaires, including the Kansas-born billionaires David and Charles Koch. But none of the biggest Democratic donors from past elections -- for example, Chicago investor Fred Eychaner, climate-change activist Tom Steyer and entertainment mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg -- have committed to supporting Clinton on nearly the same scale.
"No one has stepped forward as the savior," said Matt Bennett, a longtime Democratic consultant in Washington.
The leading super PAC backing Clinton, Priorities USA Action, has won commitments of only about $15 million so far, Democrats involved with the group's fundraising said.
In planning sessions and one-on-one meetings with donors, Ickes, who is a Priorities USA board member, and other Clinton supporters are discussing how to raise as much as $300 million for Democratic outside groups. That is almost twice as much as Democratic super PACs and other outside groups spent to help re-elect President Barack Obama in 2012, when conservative super PACs far outspent liberal ones.
This goal will require the emergence of a new class of at least 20 Democratic donors who can give $5 million or even $10 million each. Ickes said recruiting them would not be easy.
"Our side isn't used to being asked for that kind of money," Ickes said. "If you asked them to put up $100 million for a hospital wing, they'd be the first in line."
Clinton also faces a perception that neither she nor her husband, former President Bill Clinton, is exactly lacking cash. Together, they earned at least $30 million in the past 16 months.
Inflated estimates of Hillary Clinton's campaign budget -- a figure of $2.5 billion was widely circulated -- have also been a headache for her campaign and for Priorities USA. A more realistic fundraising target for her campaign, people close to her say, is around $1 billion.
One challenge for Ickes and other fundraisers is convincing potential donors of the importance of super PACs to Hillary Clinton's chances. In part to convey that message, Priorities USA recently brought in Guy Cecil, a well-known Democratic operative with close ties to Clinton's campaign, to lead the organization.
"People are starting to understand that Priorities' work is critical and not just a luxury," Cecil said. "If we are going to be successful in 2016, it will require more from everyone, at every level."
Clinton will have little difficulty mustering a large network of so-called bundlers, the donors at the heart of a presidential campaign's fundraising operation, who solicit contributions limited to a few thousand dollars from their friends and business associates. But the pool of Democratic super PAC donors is smaller and more specialized.
Some of those donors have poured substantial sums into Democratic super PACs in past election cycles: Steyer, a retired California hedge fund founder, invested $74 million in 2014 to pressure candidates to back policies to combat climate change, becoming the Democratic Party's leading donor. Eychaner, a Chicago media investor active in gay-rights issues, gave at least $22 million to Democratic super PACs in 2012 and 2014.
Other potential super PAC donors, like Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton, Los Angeles investor Ron Burkle and media investor Haim Saban, are believed to be prospects this year because of their long-standing ties to the Clinton family.
Other potential donors of $10 million or more, fearful of being targeted for attacks by Republicans, want to write the biggest checks only when their peers do, forcing Democratic fundraisers to devise what are in effect donor buddy systems, matching up would-be givers who can synchronize their check-writing.
Priorities USA is also considering resurrecting an affiliated nonprofit group that could accept secret donations. Such fundraising has been roundly denounced by watchdog groups -- and, recently, by Clinton.
A bigger problem, Democratic fundraisers and super PAC officials acknowledge, is that they are out of practice. The peak for donations to Democratic outside groups was 2004, when hedge-fund billionaire George Soros and insurance executive Peter Lewis poured close to $40 million into groups opposing President George W. Bush. The groups collected almost $200 million, largely on the strength of liberal donors' dislike of Bush.
Information for this article was contributed by Maggie Haberman of The New York Times.
A Section on 05/31/2015