Bloomberg to reassess campaign following lackluster Super Tuesday showing

Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg on Wednesday plans to reassess his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination after a lackluster showing in the Super Tuesday primaries, according to a source close to his campaign.

Bloomberg, who only launched his presidential bid in November, has spent hundreds of millions of dollars of his personal fortune to build out his campaign’s advertising and organization operations across the 14 states that held their primaries on Tuesday.

The primaries on Tuesday also marked the first time that Bloomberg appeared on the ballot. He notably skipped the four early primaries and caucuses in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, opting instead for a strategy focused on Super Tuesday and beyond.

But results showed him falling short of his expectations in states where he had made particularly high investments, including Virginia and North Carolina.

Former Vice President Joe Biden won those states, as well as Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee and Minnesota, while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has so far carried three states: Vermont, Colorado and Utah.

The results were disappointing for Bloomberg, whose presidential bid hinged on a bet that Biden’s support would collapse once voting began last month. 

And while the former vice president suffered worse-than-expected showings in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, a major victory in South Carolina over the weekend appears to have revived his campaign, giving him momentum as he headed into Super Tuesday. 

He was also bolstered in recent days by the decision of two of his moderate rivals, former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), to drop out of the race and endorse him. 

The moderate coalescence around Biden has complicated Bloomberg’s path to the nomination. In a statement on Tuesday, his campaign manager Kevin Sheekey touted Bloomberg’s surge to the top-tier of the primary field in the few months that he’s been on the campaign trail. 

But Sheekey did not say what Bloomberg’s next steps in the race would be. 

“Tonight, only one-third of delegates will be allotted. As Mike said tonight, ‘No matter how many delegates we win tonight, we have done something no one else thought was possible. In just three months, we’ve gone from just 1% in the polls to being a contender for the Democratic nomination.

“Our number one priority remains defeating Donald Trump in November.”