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Before raising millions of campaign dollars for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris or breaking ranks with the Democratic Party to publish a tell-all political memoir, Lindy Li was trying to build a political career from the candidate’s podium.
“I just knew,” Li said.
“I knew that I was supposed to run for Congress. But I didn’t know I was supposed to do it at twenty-four years old.”
In the lead-up to the 2024 election, that ambition crashed headlong into lifelong convictions about loyalty and stretched them to a breaking point. Li’s status as a top Democratic fundraiser would soon crumble as she switched her party affiliation over unheeded warning signs about President Joe Biden’s decline in the 2024 election. That break has left her uncertain about her future, but hasn’t stopped her from thinking about what could come next.
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“President Rubio calls me in two years, four years, then there’s an open seat in Pennsylvania for whatever reason,” Li said, ruminating about her future.
“You know, I could solidify my hand on a hundred million dollars. I think few people could do a better job, and I’m sorry if that sounds conceited. And I’m not saying I want it; I’m just saying if it falls into my lap, then sure, but who knows?”
Li’s family initially came to the United States from China, fleeing persecution from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which Li said had killed her great-grandfather. After growing up briefly in Sheffield, England, Li joined her parents in New England at the age of five.
She recounted how her family moved from Boston to New Haven to Pennsylvania as her father worked as a doctor.
From her parents, Li said she inherited a sense of work ethic that enabled her to fuel her sense of political destiny. At Princeton, Li used that work ethic to become the only woman class president to hold the office for four consecutive years.
“I used to go around with candy and just be like, ‘Can you please vote for me? This is what I intend to do. I want to expand late meals and offer sushi,’ whatever the platform was. I was tenacious; nobody could outwork me,” Li said.
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The “plan,” Li said, was to become a senator.
But that wasn’t supposed to happen for another ten years when, in 2012, a school shooter attacked Sandy Hook Elementary School, killing 20 children. Li recalled how the attack accelerated her convictions to enter public life and prompted her to leave a budding career in finance.
“I just felt it in my heart that I was supposed to help do whatever I could to save those kids,” Li said.
Despite conservative leanings, Li ran twice as a Democrat, never advancing past the primary stage. But her fundraising caught the attention of Democratic strategists. In 2016, she raised nearly $515,000 and in 2018 another $168,000.
“I didn’t intend to become a fundraiser,” Li recalled. “It’s a lot of salesmanship, and I hated it. I hate it. And I also know I’m very good at it. This is not me bragging; I just know.”
“They came to my home. I remember. The executive director showed up to my home to recruit me for this. It was like Scientology. He noticed— I mean, everybody noticed that as a kid I basically raised $700,000. I just caught the eye of party leadership.”
Alongside her aspirations, Li said she also cultivated a sense of loyalty, a quality she said has been a key part of her character since she can remember.
“Like if somebody’s kind to me, I will go to the ends of the earth for them. And it always surprises me and I shouldn’t be surprised when someone doesn’t reciprocate because that’s just how I operate. You have to give me a reason to walk away from you. If you have my loyalty, there’s very little I wouldn’t do for you,” Li said.
That loyalty, combined with her fundraising prowess, led Li to climb swiftly, rubbing shoulders with some of the party’s top operatives. During the Biden and Harris campaigns, Li communicated with figures like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., — many of whom she built personal relationships with.
But that loyalty reached a tipping point in 2024 when, as a fundraiser, Li saw the party selling donors and voters on the idea that President Joe Biden could serve effectively as president for another four years despite mounting concerns about his cognitive abilities.
In recent months, Li has published a book, Unbroken, documenting the party’s internal deliberations around Biden’s age and how, according to her, many of them knowingly understood the political liabilities that came with his age.
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That book and the warpath to writing it have severed virtually all of her relationships from when she was a Democrat. As she documented in her book, it even cost her a personal romantic relationship of eight years.
To an extent, Li understood the price tag that came with her decision to go public with her insider knowledge.
She suspects some of the people she left behind understand that price, too.
“If Josh Shapiro ever walks into the room, I know we’re gonna understand each other, I know. Like despite everything that’s happened. I think he’s going to understand. I understand why he needed to throw me, you know, to the wolves.”
“I never would have done that to him, though,” she added.
Li still holds fast to the idea of loyalty as a matter of personal conviction. But regardless of where her ambitions take her next, she believes she will have to temper them with honesty that makes few allowances for party narratives.
“I think I would describe my worldview as realpolitik with Lindy characteristics,” Li said.
“I’m no longer going to half-heartedly support anybody. I learned my lesson about Biden and Harris. So I’m just waiting,” Li said.
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