Bloomberg thinks big:
While Democratic rivals stump in Iowa, former New York mayor continues push for California.
SACRAMENTO — As his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination made their final pitches to Iowa voters on Monday, Mike Bloomberg was 1,700 miles away at a midtown Sacramento coffee shop.
The earlymorning meetandgreet was the first stop on the former New York mayor’s latest campaign swing through California, a linchpin in his strategy to skip the early voting states in favor of amassing support in the biggest, most delegaterich primaries.
And no prize is bigger than California — 494 delegates awarded through a complex mix of statewide and districtlevel results that could ultimately benefit multiple topperforming candidates. Bloomberg’s schedule Monday also included planned stops in Fresno, Compton (Los Angeles County), Seal Beach (Orange County) and Riverside.
In brief remarks to several dozen curious onlookers and a handful of hardcore fans, Bloomberg skipped policy issues almost entirely and instead emphasized his path to victory.
“I am running to defeat Donald Trump, but also to put the united back in the United States. We are not together, and we have to be,” Bloomberg said.
“If you’re going to unite the country, maybe it would be nice to unite everybody in the country,” he said.
Bloomberg, 77, didn’t enter the race until November, and is blanketing the airwaves with ads and has set up state operations across the country to make up for his late start. He has already spent more than $200 million of his $54 billion fortune on the campaign, drawing some criticism from opponents that he is trying to buy the nomination.
His California campaign has opened 20 offices and hired 300 staffers, and is sending mail with messages targeted to seven regions, said Crystal Strait, his political director for the state.
A strong performance here is critical for Bloomberg, who was introduced Monday morning by state Treasurer Fiona Ma, a recent endorser. California is one of 14 states set to vote on Super Tuesday, March 3, when Bloomberg hopes to reshape whatever momentum other candidates have established in the earlyvoting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.
“Super Tuesday is our first real showing with voters,” Strait said. “In
California, we have to create our own narrative.”
So far Bloomberg is the choice of about 4% of California’s Democratic primary voters, according to an average of polls by RealClearPolitics.com — good enough for fifth, and well short of the 15% threshold to win delegates.
Some of those supporters showed up to his Sacramento event to meet Bloomberg, including
Lexis Allen, an 82yearold attorney and lifelong Republican who said she switched her party registration two weeks ago to vote for Bloomberg in the Democratic primary.
Although she voted for Trump in 2016, Allen said she could not vote for him again because “he has no concept of what it is to be president.” She said she did not like the rest of the Democratic field, but was drawn to Bloomberg’s accomplishments in three terms as New York mayor.
Most attendees, however, seemed to be feeling out their choices in an unsettled field. Stevante Clark, the 27yearold brother of Stephon Clark, who was killed by Sacramento police in 2018, came to find out whether Bloomberg had a criminal justice plan. He took pictures with the candidate and was wooed by the campaign before leaving, still undecided and waiting for a plan that is “good for the community.”
Malia Yang, 54, a retired graphic designer, said she was torn between several options, but wanted to know more about Bloomberg after matching closely with him in an online quiz of candidates’ positions. She said she would probably choose the candidate who came across as most charismatic and trustworthy: “I don’t want to vote for a candidate who seems old,” she said.
Reflecting later on the event, however, she said that while she liked what Bloomberg is saying, she had decided she would cast her primary vote for someone younger — either Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, age 70, or Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, age 59.