Bloomberg may run for president as Democrat
Views on policing and #Metoo could be a problem in campaign
SEATTLE — Michael Bloomberg is actively considering a campaign for president as a Democrat in 2020, concluding that it would be his only path to the White House even as he voices stark disagreements with progressives on defining issues including bank regulation, stopand-frisk police tactics and the #Metoo movement.
Bloomberg, 76, a billionaire media executive and former New York City mayor, has already aligned himself with Democrats in the midterm elections, approving a plan to spend $80 million to flip control of the House of Representatives. A political group he controls will soon begin spending heavily in three Republican-held districts in Southern California, attacking conservative candidates for their stances on abortion, guns and the environment.
At events across the West Coast and Nevada in recent days, Bloomberg, who was elected mayor as a Republican and an independent, denounced his former party in sharp terms. He urged audiences in Seattle and San Francisco to punish Republicans who oppose gun control or reject climate science. And in Las Vegas on Sunday he called on Democrats to seize command of the political center and win over Americans “who voted Republican in 2016.”
But Bloomberg’s aspirations appear to run well beyond dismantling Republicans’ House majority, and he is taking steps that advisers acknowledge are aimed in part at testing his options for 2020.
After a gun control-themed event in a Seattle community center Friday, Bloomberg, who has repeatedly explored running for president as an independent in the past, said in an interview that he now firmly believes only a major-party nominee can win the White House. If he were to run, Bloomberg said it would be as a Democrat, and he left open the door to changing his party registration in the coming months.
“It’s impossible to conceive that I could run as a Republican