WASHINGTON – Well-to-do donors gathered last August at the sprawling Charlotte, North Carolina, home of Erskine Bowles, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, where they nibbled finger food, sipped wine and listened to Joe Biden.
Last week they again joined Bowles and his wife, Crandall. But this time it was for a far less intimate affair: a fundraiser held by video conference that Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, joined from the makeshift studio in the basement of his Delaware home.
The coronavirus shutdown has forced Democratic donors to forgo the opulent fundraisers that allow them to rub shoulders with powerful elected leaders and candidates.