NEW YORK — Michael Bloomberg is taking steps toward a potential presidential campaign despite saying eight months ago that he would not seek the White House, news reports say.
Disappointed with the current Democratic primary field, the multibillionaire former New York City mayor will file to get on Alabama’s presidential primary ballot as he considers launching a 2020 campaign after all, according to multiple reports published Thursday.
Bloomberg “believes that Donald Trump represents an unprecedented threat to our nation,” but that the “the current field of candidates is not well positioned” to beat the Republican president, a spokesperson for the former three-term mayor told The Washington Post.
Bloomberg decided against running for president in March after months of speculation and formally registering as a Democrat. He said then that he felt he could beat Trump but was also “clear-eyed” about the difficulty of winning a crowded Democratic primary.
While he has not made a final decision about whether to run, the centrist financial media magnate is now unimpressed with the field’s leading contenders such as former Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, according to news reports.
“He thinks Biden is weak and (Bernie) Sanders and Warren can’t win,” an unnamed source familiar with Bloomberg’s reversal told The New York Post.
This is reportedly the fourth consecutive presidential race that Bloomberg, who won two mayoral elections as a Republican, has considered entering. He also pondered launching campaigns in 2008, 2012 and 2016 but never did so.
While the Democratic Party has moved to the left, Bloomberg has reportedly questioned the #MeToo movement and stood behind the controversial stop-and-frisk tactics the NYPD used during his tenure as mayor.
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