HOUSTON — Michael Bloomberg’s pitch that he’s the center-left Democrat best positioned to thump both socialist Bernie Sanders and their Republican opponent, President Trump, took its own beating with Joe Biden’s win in South Carolina.
Biden, 77, salvaged his presidential campaign on Saturday when he won the first-in-the-South primary, his first victory of the 2020 Democratic race. Though still trailing Sanders, the Vermont senator, in the all-important delegate count before the party’s nominating convention this summer in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the two-term vice president heads into Super Tuesday on firmer footing.
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But as Biden steadies his White House bid, his success comes at the expense of Bloomberg’s, who entered the contest late as Biden’s unvarnished front-runner status was slowly being chipped away.
The billionaire former New York City mayor, 78, didn’t compete in South Carolina, but he spent part of the week in the state for the debate-turned-squabble, his second time onstage with six other rivals fighting to become the next Democratic standard-bearer, and his inaugural televised town hall.
After months of relying on his now-$500 million advertising buy, spending $200 million on his campaign at-large in January alone, his decision to become less guarded and protected by his aides comes as polls tighten in Super Tuesday states.
In California, he’s polling fourth with an average of 10.8% of the vote, suggesting he’ll fall short of the 15% threshold required to earn large swathes of delegates in the delegate-rich state, according to RealClearPolitics data. However, he’s faring better in the other big Super Tuesday state of Texas, where he’s third with an average of 19.3% support. He’s also running third in North Carolina with 17%, while being stronger in Virginia, where he’s second with 19.5%, both of which are crucial general election battlegrounds.
Whether Biden finally showing Democrats he can win changes Bloomberg’s standing between now and Tuesday is an open question that the information services entrepreneur is trying to counter as he crisscrosses the country, visiting the 14 states and entities that will weigh in on the primary on March 3, particularly Southern states where he has a comparative resource advantage over the rest of the field.
With two days before Super Tuesday, Democrats in Texas, for example, are suggesting the former mayor drop his boardroom mentality and reveal more about the man rather than the CEO.
And perhaps his team, which is usually better known for its quirky social media tactics but this week came under scrutiny for homophobic comments made both by its boss and its North Carolina state director, is listening.
This weekend, CBS’s 60 Minutes will air its interview with Bloomberg. The affair is being billed as a more intimate portrayal of who he is instead of what he presents on the trail. The interview was taped at his childhood home in Medford, Massachusetts, where he still pays the phone bill so he can hear his mother’s voice on the answering machine.
“A few years ago, there was a revolution against the intelligentsia,” he says, according to excerpts. “They wanted a change. That explains Donald Trump. Now, people seem to have changed. This cycle, people want stability.”
