Rule change could see Bloomberg join Dems debate
The Democratic National Committee has dropped grassroots fundraising qualifications for the party’s February 19 presidential candidates’ debate, opening the possibility that billionaire Michael Bloomberg could make his first appearance on stage.
The party announced yesterday three ways for candidates to reach the debate stage, which involve reaching certain polling thresholds or banking a convention delegate in the first two nominating contests, in Iowa and New Hampshire.
All previous debates have included a fundraising element, and since September, candidates have had to reach both polling thresholds and grassroots fundraising marks.
Bloomberg, a former New York City mayor, has not yet hit the polling marks, but he will have until February 18, the day before the debate, to do so – a prospect that pleases some rivals and incenses others.
The multibillionaire is selffunding his White House bid – spending at least US$188 million (NZ$290.8m) from the time he entered the race on November 24 until the end of the year, according to disclosures filed yesterday – and never could have qualified had debate participants been required to reach a certain number of donors.
The Bloomberg campaign praised the DNC’s decision to change the debate rules.
Rival campaigns have complained for weeks that Bloomberg has been avoiding scrutiny as he spreads his personal fortune across Super Tuesday states, part of his unusual campaign that is skipping the first four states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.
Bloomberg donated more than US$100,000 to the DNC just days before he entered the race. Candidates typically make such contributions to get access to the party’s national voter database.
But how to treat him on the debate stage is a tricky proposition for rival candidates’ campaigns.
They are wary about validating Bloomberg as a legitimate threat as they try to amass the nearly 2000 delegates that will be necessary to win the nomination as the party’s candidate to take on US President Donald Trump in the November election.
Former contenders Julian Castro and Cory Booker, in particular, have complained that the DNC’s rules unfairly target minority candidates because grassroots donor bases are whiter than the Democratic electorate.
Jeff Weaver, a senior adviser to Bernie Sanders, said it would be wrong to change the rules. Elizabeth Warren said there shouldn’t be a separate set of rules for billionaires.