"This type of donation...makes me question his ability to challenge power."

WASHINGTON (AP) - The financial sector, blamed by progressives for spawning the 2008 economic collapse, is lining up behind Pete Buttigieg's presidential campaign. The mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has collected more campaign cash from donors and political action committees tied to the financial, insurance and real estate sector than any other White House hopeful, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

...One top Wall Street law firm could pose particular challenges for Buttigieg with progressives. He's the top recipient of cash this cycle from Sullivan & Cromwell, which has worked on some of the biggest corporate mergers in recent history, including Amazon's acquisition of Whole Foods, AT&T's purchase of Time Warner and Bayer's merger with Monsanto. The firm also represented some of the largest financial institutions that received federal bailout money.

...The firm's work on mergers in particular could raise concerns among voters in Iowa, where Buttigieg has staked much of his candidacy on a strong showing in the nation's first caucuses. Sullivan & Cromwell worked on one of the biggest agricultural company mergers in history in 2018 when drug and chemical company Bayer combined with agricultural giant Monsanto....Austin Frerick, a native Iowan and former Treasury economist who now heads up an antitrust enforcement research program at Yale University, said "seed cost increases are a direct impact of ag mergers like these,"

Frerick helped Buttigieg develop his agriculture plan in which Buttigieg pledges, among other antitrust planks, to double funding for antitrust enforcement and "launch investigations of the seed market's recent mergers for anticompetitive behavior."

Frerick said he was initially "really inspired" by Buttigieg running for president as a young, gay candidate with a message of change. But after seeing the donations from Sullivan & Cromwell lawyers, he decided to support Warren instead. "Antitrust is about power, and are you willing to trust power," Frerick said. "This type of donation from a law firm makes me question his ability to challenge power."

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