Wall Street grew so frustrated with US President Joe Biden’s antitrust policies over the past three and a half years that many long-standing Democratic dealmakers considered switching their support to Donald Trump in the 2024 elections or even boycotting the ballot altogether.
But two events have dramatically changed that stance in the past fortnight: Trump named JD Vance as his running mate and Biden dropped his re-election bid, endorsing his vice-president Kamala Harris for the Democratic nomination.
Mergers and acquisitions practitioners are now reconsidering their electoral strategies. They consider Harris to be potentially more moderate than Vance, who is seen as an economic populist who could double down on the antitrust policies initiated by Biden’s trustbusters.