Michael Bloomberg surges with unconventional Democratic presidential campaign

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As most Democratic presidential candidates were packing up their New Hampshire primary campaigns, Michael Bloomberg was opening an office in the state in preparation for the November election. The message was clear: The former New York mayor and billionaire has no intention of running a typical presidential campaign. And as the ninth-richest person in the country, he has ample resources to play the long game.

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Until recently, the founder of Bloomberg L.P., his eponymous financial data and media behemoth, was seen as a long shot in a crowded Democratic primary. But in recent weeks, as former vice-president Joe Biden stumbled through fourth-place finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire, Mr. Bloomberg, who turned 78 on Valentine’s Day, has suddenly emerged in the eyes of many moderate voters as the Democratic Party’s best hope. A Quinnipiac University poll from last week placed him behind Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and in a statistical dead heat with Mr. Biden.

Mr. Bloomberg’s campaign is gambling that voters will see him as having the best chance to defeat Donald Trump, with the candidate framing himself as the more capable of the two New York billionaires.

“Our party needs a candidate who can go toe to toe and fight with him,” Mr. Bloomberg told a campaign stop in Raleigh, N.C., Thursday. “He’s not going to bully me, and I’m not going to let him bully you either.”

His sudden rise in the polls is all the more surprising given that Mr. Bloomberg is a former Republican and titan of the financial industry, has little stage presence, has yet to appear on a state ballot for the Democratic nomination or participate in a televised debate – and began his campaign by apologizing for his support for a controversial policing tactic that disproportionately targeted minorities.

"It’s certainly not something that four years ago I would have thought: Oh, Bloomberg’s going to come in and be the electability candidate,” said Julian Brash, the author of Bloomberg’s New York: Class and Governance in the Luxury City and a professor at Montclair State University in New Jersey. “It’s sort of ironic that it would be him.”

His surging popularity has alarmed his Democratic opponents, who have spent the past week directing their fire at him.

“The simple truth is that Mayor Bloomberg, with all his money, will not create the kind of excitement and energy we need to have the voter turnout we must have to defeat Donald Trump,” Mr. Sanders told a Democratic Party event in Las Vegas on the weekend.

Mr. Bloomberg responded on Twitter Monday with a video of offensive comments made by Mr. Sanders’s supporters on social media. “We need to unite to defeat Trump in November,” he wrote. “This type of ‘energy’ is not going to get us there.”

Mr. Trump, too, has been rattled. He lashed out at Mr. Bloomberg, mocking his height as 5-foot-4. (He is reportedly 5-foot-8.) “Mini Mike Bloomberg is a LOSER who has money but can’t debate and has zero presence, you will see,” the President wrote on Twitter. Mr. Bloomberg wasted little time responding to his former golf buddy: “We know many of the same people in NY. Behind your back they laugh at you & call you a carnival barking clown.”

Mr. Bloomberg’s campaign is unconventional. He jumped into the race late in November after ruling out a presidential bid. He is eschewing early voting states to spend more than US$300-million on advertising in the 14 states that vote on March 3, known as Super Tuesday. He has refused donations – financing his campaign entirely from his estimated US$61-billion net worth.

As his competitors were battling it out in Iowa and New Hampshire, he was quietly assembling an extensive national campaign infrastructure, opening 150 offices and hiring more than 2,400 staff.

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His efforts have earned him endorsements from more than 100 mayors, the most of any Democratic candidate. “It’s a very unorthodox strategy,” said University of Maryland political scientist David Karol, an expert on presidential primaries. “It has never worked for anybody in the past, but unprecedented things have happened.”

For those who know Mr. Bloomberg, however, his rise is the product of a methodical strategy, one that echoes his tenure in New York, where he was one of only a handful of mayors to serve three terms in office. “Mike doesn’t do these things unless he knows he’s going to win – not knows he has a chance, knows he’s going to win,” said veteran Democratic pollster John Zogby, who has conducted polling for Mr. Bloomberg. “So he’s seeing things that we mortals don’t.”

It’s possible to draw parallels between his presidential campaign and his first race for mayor, in 2001, when he ran as a Republican, spending lavishly to hire a campaign staff culled from the upper echelons of business, government and academia.

Many of the key advisers on his presidential campaign hail from his time in the mayor’s office, from Bloomberg L.P. and from his charitable arm, Bloomberg Philanthropies. Then, as now, Mr. Bloomberg was a long-shot candidate who gambled that infighting within the Democratic Party would help clear his way to victory.

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“He’s cautious and careful and data-driven," said Joyce Purnick, a former long-time New York Times political columnist and the author of Mike Bloomberg: Money, Power, Politics. “He knew that he had a path to win the mayoralty, just as he thinks now he has a path to win the presidency.”

Unlike previous wealthy businessmen whose self-financed presidential campaigns struggled to gain traction, Mr. Bloomberg has spent the past several years building up a well of goodwill among Democrats by funding the party’s candidates and causes such as gun control and climate change. He spent more than US$110-million supporting two dozen Democratic candidates in swing districts in the 2018 midterms, helping the party retake control of the House of Representatives.

But the years spent in New York business and government have left him with plenty of political baggage.

He has defended himself against allegations he fostered a toxic work environment for female employees at Bloomberg. And he was forced to apologize for supporting stop-and-frisk, a New York City Police Department program that allowed officers to search large numbers of people for weapons, the majority of whom were African-American and Latino, and turned out to be unarmed. A federal court deemed the city’s use of the practice unconstitutional in 2013.

Mr. Bloomberg’s massive wealth, earned selling financial information to Wall Street, is another potential liability, with both the President and Mr. Sanders revelling in attacking global elites.

Mr. Bloomberg’s massive campaign budgets – he spent almost US$100-million to win his third term as mayor – were also a point of contention among pundits and opponents in New York. But voters ultimately seemed to accept his argument that his money allowed him to be a truly independent politician, unbeholden to special interests.

“I think, for the most part, New Yorkers, said to themselves: Look, if he wants to spend part of his fortune to run for office, that’s his business,” Ms. Purnick said.

Mr. Bloomberg’s real test won’t come until Super Tuesday, when his name will finally appear on the ballot in states that control a third of the delegates needed to win the nomination.

“Nobody else is going to have TV ads in all those 14 states,” said Bob Mulholland, a Democratic National Committee member from California who is backing Mr. Biden. “But Bloomberg will. He’s a whole new ballgame.”