By Tucker Reilly, News Assignment Editor
With the Democratic field slimming down after the New Hampshire primary, it seems like a strange time for a new face to debut on the debate stage. Nevertheless, on Wednesday night, Mike Bloomberg took his place next to seasoned candidates like Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, seemingly proving that his once joked-about campaign is now a legitimate threat.
Media outlets appear to be picking up on Bloomberg’s newfound attention: the Washington Post reported that Bloomberg had spent over $233 million on campaign advertising, and Fivethirtyeight.com now currently lists him at a 9% chance to win the nomination, ahead of Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigeg.
If you’ve watched cable news in the past month, you’ve probably seen one or more Bloomberg ads, with his “Mike will get it done” catchphrase. MSNBC’s Joy Reid praised Bloomberg’s cross-party appeal (Bloomberg served three terms as the Republican mayor of New York City), and his electability against Donald Trump, saying, “If you want a Democrat to win, they have to know how to fight like a Republican. He is a Republican, or used to be anyway.”
The only issue with this kind of thinking is that it’s been tried, and failed before. In July 2016, senator Chuck Schumer boasted the appeal of then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign, claiming, “For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.”
Trump won Pennsylvania. He won Wisconsin, and he took Ohio by a sweeping 8 percent. Sure enough, Clinton netted 12 counties in Illinois, taking the state because of urban turnout, but it didn’t give her the election. It won’t for Bloomberg either.
Bloomberg’s political career has come under scrutiny from all ends of the political spectrum. Critics from the left dislike his support of stop-and-frisk programs as mayor of New York City, his apparent racial bias towards crime (“If you look at where crime takes place, it’s in minority neighborhoods. If you look at who the victims and the perpetrators are, it’s virtually all minorities”) and housing policies he implemented as mayor, like the rent subsidy program. Critics on the right dislike his endorsement of President Barack Obama, his support of abortion and his campaigning for gun reform, topics Trump would be sure to attack should Bloomberg make it to the general election.
At the end of Jan. 2020, a Gallup poll reported that 94 percent of Republicans approve of Trump’s performance as president. Bloomberg’s presumed Republican support voted for Trump in 2016, and conservatives characterize Bloomberg as a political enemy. They won’t be coming out to vote for him. They’ll be voting for Trump.
reillyt19@bonaventure.edu
