Before Michael Bloomberg launched his 2020 presidential campaign, he was a respected former New York City mayor, an influential Democratic activist, and a darling of the liberal media. But after spending a whopping $1.2 billion on his late-in-the-game bid for the Democratic nomination and failing spectacularly, now Bloomberg is a national joke.
Bloomberg’s campaign ended more than a month ago, but he filed a Federal Election Commission report on Monday detailing $176 million spent in March as the campaign winded down, according to Politico. This is what finally pushed his total spending past the eye-popping $1 billion mark. All that spending procured pathetic results: Bloomberg won zero states, just the territory of American Samoa, and only a few delegates. Final figures show he spent roughly $17 million per delegate won.
Yikes.
But it’s not like all Bloomberg did was lose money on a failed campaign. He also torpedoed his national reputation and got himself repeatedly humiliated in front of millions of viewers.
The same journalists and Democratic competitors who a minute ago had been Bloomberg’s best friends (when they were taking his money, that is) pounced on him, slamming the former mayor for his long history of supporting racist policies such as “stop and frisk.” They painted him as an out of touch, ignorant billionaire who was basically a Democratic version of President Trump. (Which, apparently, only bothers them when he’s their competitor, not when he’s their piggy bank.)
The attacks worked. Bloomberg initially surged in the polls, but after his few disastrous debate performances and the attacks started rolling in, he collapsed.
But the failed candidate didn’t collapse in time to avoid being humiliated by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, of all people on the debate stage. She called out Bloomberg’s atrocious record of sexism and his long history of using nondisclosure agreements to silence women who would speak out against him.
“I’d like to talk about who we’re running against: a billionaire who calls women fat broads and horse-faced lesbians, and, no, I’m not talking about Donald Trump,” Warren said on stage to widespread fanfare. “I’m talking about Mayor Bloomberg.”
So, yeah, all Bloomberg really got for this $1 billion campaign was national humiliation. Despite his past business success, the billionaire evidently isn’t the best investor.
