Campaign

On The Trail: Bloomberg’s millions can’t buy him many delegates

by Reid Wilson - 03/04/20 12:01 AM ET

Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s foray into presidential politics suffered a substantial blow Tuesday as his campaign failed to meet its own expectations in the race for delegates in Super Tuesday states.

Bloomberg, competing for the first time on Tuesday after the four early states delivered their verdicts, bet his bank account would overcome the groundwork carefully laid by his main rivals.

That bet does not appear to have paid off, as the billionaire media mogul trailed former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in most states, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in several more.

Bloomberg was on track to win just one of the 15 contests held Tuesday — the caucuses in American Samoa, which will send only six delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee.

He appeared likely to miss out on delegates altogether in Alabama, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Vermont and Virginia, all states where he spent millions on television advertising and paid staff.

Final delegate counts are days or weeks away, but the early results suggest Bloomberg will fall well short of the delegates his campaign hoped to net on Tuesday.

It was a stunning failure for a campaign that has spent so much in such a short time frame, overwhelming rivals who were shoveling money out the door as fast as it came in with the bottomless checkbook of one of the world’s richest men.

An internal memo from Bloomberg advisers Mitch Stewart and Dan Kanninen released in mid-February suggested Bloomberg would end Super Tuesday with more than 300 delegates.

Two sources with knowledge of the campaign’s internal projections said the private numbers suggested Bloomberg would end the night within 150 delegates of Sanders, and that the campaign expected to win Alabama, Arkansas and Oklahoma, all states Biden won instead.

The memo called on Bloomberg’s chief rivals for the anti-Sanders mantle to exit the race. After Tuesday, it appeared that Bloomberg had played the spoiler, rather than the spoiled.

“It isn’t a number of delegates you’d think half a billion dollars would buy if you’re Bloomberg,” said Josh Putnam, a political scientist who authors the Frontloading HQ blog focused on delegate math. “He’s been blanked in a number of states he heavily invested in and he’s cut into Biden’s delegates elsewhere.”

Money, it seems, does not buy Democratic love. Bloomberg is the second billionaire candidate to discover that an open checkbook does not translate to votes.

Retired hedge fund manager Tom Steyer dropped out of the race for the Democratic nomination late Saturday, after spending about a quarter of a billion dollars on his own bid only to finish far behind the front-runners in each of the first four states.

Bloomberg’s campaign nodded to his poor showing while pledging to press on.

“Tonight, only one-third of delegates will be allotted,” campaign manager Kevin Sheekey said in a statement. During a speech in Florida, Bloomberg cast himself as “a contender” for the Democratic nomination, rather than a front-runner worthy of deference from his anti-Sanders rivals.

Bloomberg will reassess the future of his campaign on Wednesday, a source close to the campaign confirmed to The Hill. Bloomberg spokespeople did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Just weeks ago, Bloomberg had momentum on his side as Democratic voters cast about for the candidate best able to beat President Trump. But a devastatingly weak performance in his debate debut in Las Vegas raised questions about Bloomberg’s temperament, his empathy and his ability to take on Trump in the fall.

Warren, who has emerged as the strongest debater in the Democratic field, was particularly enthusiastic about eviscerating Bloomberg on live television.

“The Democrats’ love affair with Bloomberg was a brief romantic swoon,” said John Couvillon, a Louisiana-based pollster. “It seemed like the air started going out of that balloon around that first debate.”

As Bloomberg faded, Biden wasn’t doing much better. His campaign had suffered through humiliating defeats in Iowa and New Hampshire; his best performance, in Nevada, could only be described as a distant second. Many strategists saw cracks emerging in his South Carolina firewall, and few believed his campaign could survive beyond the Palmetto State without a win.

If Warren deserved credit for bringing Bloomberg down, House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) deserves the credit for lifting Biden up.

Clyburn’s last-minute endorsement fueled a surge of support that began in South Carolina, where Biden won every county. It continued Tuesday, where Biden won overwhelmingly among voters who had decided in the race’s final days.

In Tennessee, Biden took 58 percent of the vote among those who decided on their candidate in the final days before election day, 27 points higher than among those who had decided earlier.

In California, a state Sanders won, Biden took 17 percent among those who decided early, and 41 percent among those who decided late. He earned a similar edge among late deciders in Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota and even Sanders’s home state of Vermont.

“Biden’s comeback in [South Carolina] was massive,” said Lara Brown, director of the Graduate School of Political Management at The George Washington University. The South Carolina results, coupled with Bloomberg’s awkward public performances, “made moderates who were seriously considering Bloomberg swing back to supporting Biden.”

About two-thirds of the Democratic delegates who will end up in Milwaukee remain to be selected, and Bloomberg on Tuesday began placing advertising in the next set of states to vote. But for a campaign that was already hinting its candidate’s only path to the nomination went through a contested convention, Tuesday’s results may have closed off that path.

“Bloomberg will get delegates out of tonight,” Brown said. “He won’t likely get enough to be able to argue that he has a viable path.”

On The Trail is a reported column by Reid Wilson, primarily focused on the 2020 elections.