PHILADELPHIA — Dressed in a stylish pink dress, donning a broad smile, and graced with an infectious personality, Jaqueline Lewis is similar in one very distinct way to the disaffected voters who found themselves in both primary and general election races in 2016 peeling away from conformity and gravitating toward a brash New Yorker.
Except, for Lewis, a lifetime conservative Republican who grew up in coal country along the western bank of the Susquehanna River, that New Yorker is Michael Bloomberg.
“I registered Republican when I moved here to go to school in 1988, and I’ve been Republican my whole life,” the 59-year-old businesswoman said.
While Lewis did not change her registration until after moving back here from a brief stint in Colorado, she did vote for Hillary Clinton and found herself not quite fitting perfectly within either party.
“It wasn’t just the 2016 election itself. As upsetting as that was, it’s really what unfolded after that, just wave after wave of things I didn’t agree with, and I felt like the Republican Party was losing its way and being willfully oblivious to what was happening,” she said.
“So, when I came back to Philadelphia, and when I went to register to vote, I thought, ‘I just can’t; this is not the Republican Party of my values, my life, interests — I can’t ratify what’s happening.’ So, I registered for independent, and then, when Mike Bloomberg’s candidacy came down, I realized to vote in a closed primary state, I needed to be a Democrat. So, I took steps to switch to register Democrat for the Pennsylvania primary.”
Lewis is one of 2,000 people who attended the Bloomberg rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday evening. She upped her dedication to the former mayor by also volunteering at the rally. The event not only garnered an impressive amount of people at the National Constitution Center, it also set itself apart by having an open bar and catered food.
All happening in arguably one of the most important general election states in the country and with its April primary date and the Democratic Party still reeling from the chaos of the flubbed Iowa caucuses on Monday night, perhaps Pennsylvania will have one of the most important primary contests, as well.
Lewis is also symbolic of one of the Republican Party’s biggest problems as both parties realign: white, educated Republican women unhappy with the tone and direction of their party.
Despite President Trump’s State of the Union address occurring on the same night of his speech, the instability of the current Democratic presidential hopefuls, and a looming impeachment vote, Tuesday’s Bloomberg rally might have the potential to become one of those moments people should have paid attention to but didn’t.
“Mike is practical. He’s straightforward, a really no-nonsense guy. I mean, he’s also kind of funny, always got a wonderful sense of humor,” said former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, who is the co-chairman of Bloomberg’s campaign and admits he is not always sure the mayor’s sense of humor is captured in the media.
Part of what Nutter says is appealing about Bloomberg’s style is that he’s not someone who requires putting the team jersey on every day. “Mike takes people where they are. People made a decision. They were very angry in 2016 for a variety of reasons. And we, as Democrats — and I’m a lifelong Democrat, member of the party, all that — but I think, collectively, we made some mistakes, and we didn’t reach and talk to some of our base in a variety of places,” he said.
In the 2008 Pennsylvania presidential primary, Nutter was the mayor, and Clinton was his candidate. She beat the eventual nominee, Barack Obama, by nearly 10 percentage points in the Keystone State, earning a broad coalition of Democrats along the way.
The question is: Is there a chance for Bloomberg here, and, if there is, what is it?
“Sure, there’s a chance, why not? You can’t rule out that Pennsylvania will matter on April 28. Look what this complete train wreck of a mess in Iowa has done in terms of creating uncertainty,” said G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin and Marshall College.
“While we don’t know what the fallout from Iowa means, we do know that now opens the probability that Pennsylvania is still going to be much more important and [that] there is room here for a Bloomberg candidacy,” he said.
Bloomberg, who is self-funding his campaign, has blanketed Pennsylvania with over $10 million worth of radio, television, and social media ads. He’ll have 100 staffers here by the end of the month (there are 40 here, now) that will support 10 field offices in the state.
With no clear front-runner and 176 delegates up for grabs, Pennsylvania’s April 28 primary is looking more and more likely to have a large role in the Democratic nomination process.
“We’re running a general election-type campaign in a primary season. We’re staffed up in every Super Tuesday state in the country. No other campaign can match that, and we’re nearly 2,000 staff in 35 states all across the country. This is a real operation, a serious campaign. Mike is committed to defeating Donald Trump in the general election in November,” said Nutter.
“There isn’t any doubt that his advertising campaign, that the hundreds of millions that he’s spending, and we’re one of the big states for this spending, it’s taking a hold in this state,” said Madonna. His statewide Franklin & Marshall College poll this week found Bloomberg has earned the support of 7% of Pennsylvania Democrats ahead of both Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, putting him in fourth place in the state.
The Bloomberg campaign announced this week it is doubling its staff to over 2,000 and will open 125 offices by the week’s end, with staffers in 40 states and territories.
Bloomberg, who has been registered at one point or another as a Republican, a Democrat, and an independent, is not without potential weaknesses in Pennsylvania. As a general election candidate, he’ll have struggles with his positions on guns and climate change. Those won’t be problems for people such as Lewis, but, certainly, in just about every county outside of suburban Philadelphia, people will be skeptical of those positions.
The Second Amendment, religious liberty, and energy will still motivate these voters to show up again for Trump in 2020.
“No doubt he will have big challenges outside of the Philly suburbs,” said Madonna. “How is he going to play with those voters on the Second Amendment? How far does he go on climate change? Does he go for a fracking ban? Because, if he does, that’s a nonstarter. It all depends on how he frames it. There are a whole range of cultural issues he has to think about.”
