Former Vice President Joe Biden will be holding a private campaign fundraiser at a Park City home in late September, his first visit to Utah since announcing his 2020 presidential bid.
Tickets to the Sept. 28 breakfast range from $500 for a “friend” to $2,800 for a “sponsor,” according to the event page. Accompanying Biden will be former U.S. Ambassador Mark Gilbert, former Utah Democratic Party chairman Wayne Holland and John Cumming, the founder of Park City-based Powdr.
The reception will take place at the home of Amy and Barry Baker, longtime media executives who hosted Hillary Clinton during her 2016 presidential bid.
Barry Baker is the former president of USA Networks and is a senior adviser to Lee Equity Partners, a private equity and venture-capital firm. Amy Baker spent a couple decades at NBC News.
In a Tuesday phone interview, Amy Baker said she and her husband are throwing their support behind Biden in the Democratic primary because they believe he can defeat President Donald Trump.
"I also know what a well-intentioned person Vice President Biden is, and I just think this country needs kinder and gentler, as he is," Baker said.
Her Park City home has hosted the Clintons for several events over the years, accommodating about 350 guests for a Hillary Clinton fundraiser in 2015 and more than 150 guests a year later when Bill Clinton was in town rallying support for his wife, she said.
Biden is locked in a virtual three-way tie with Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren for the Democratic nomination, according to a national survey released Monday by Monmouth University Poll. The latest numbers represent a decline for Biden, who had been polling as the race’s front-runner.
The former vice president spoke at the University of Utah in December while on a tour promoting his memoir, “Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose.” That was several months before the official start of his presidential campaign, but the book was interpreted by some as an indication that the longtime U.S. senator from Delaware would launch a Democratic bid for the nation’s highest office.
The University of Utah had agreed to pay Biden $100,000 to speak, but when the former vice president heard the money would come from state coffers, he declined the check, according to The New York Times.
