Bloomberg makes debate stage, faces rivals

Buttigieg test: Winning over minority voters

WASHINGTON, Feb 18, (AP): Billionaire Mike Bloomberg has qualified for the upcoming Democratic presidential debate, marking the first time he’ll stand alongside the rivals he has so far avoided by bypassing the early voting states and using his personal fortune to define himself through television ads.

A new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll published Tuesday shows Bloomberg with 19% support nationally in the Democratic nominating contest.

The former New York City mayor, who launched his presidential campaign in November, will appear in Wednesday’s debate in Las Vegas alongside former Vice President Joe Biden, Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Fellow billionaire and philanthropist Tom Steyer is still hoping to qualify.

Bloomberg’s campaign said that it was seeing “a groundswell of support across the country” and that qualifying for Wednesday’s debate “is the latest sign that Mike’s plan and ability to defeat Donald Trump is resonating with more Americans.”

“Mike is looking forward to joining the other Democratic candidates on stage and making the case for why he’s the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump and unite the country,” Bloomberg campaign manager Kevin Sheekey said in a statement.

The Democratic National Committee recently changed its rules for how a candidate qualifies for the debate, opening the door for Bloomberg to be on stage and drawing the ire of some candidates who dropped out of the race for failing to make prior stages. The candidates were previously required to receive a certain number of campaign contributions to qualify, but Bloomberg, who is worth an estimated $60 billion, is not taking donations.

The prime-time event will be a stark departure from Bloomberg’s highly choreographed campaign. He’s poured more than $300 million into television advertising, a way to define himself for voters without facing criticism. While he’s campaigned in more than two dozen states, he does not take questions from voters and delivers a standard stump speech that lasts less than 15 minutes, often reading from a teleprompter.

He encounters the occasional protester, including one who jumped on stage recently in Chattanooga, Tennessee, yelling, “This is not democracy. This is a plutocracy!” But his friendly crowds usually quickly overwhelm the protesters with chants of “We like Mike!”

Bloomberg is likely to face far more direct fire in the debate. His fellow Democratic contenders have stepped up their attacks against him in recent days, decrying him for trying to “buy the election” and criticizing his support of the “stop-andfrisk” tactic while mayor of New York City that led police to target mostly black and Hispanic men for searches.

Bloomberg has barely crossed paths on the trail with his fellow Democrats. He decided to skip the first four voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina in favor of focusing on the 14 states that vote on March 3 and the contests that come afterward.

Campaign

He rarely mentions his rivals by name, though his campaign is centered on the idea that none of them can beat President Donald Trump. And Bloomberg, more than anyone, has predicated his campaign on a potential Biden collapse. He’s been aggressive in targeting African American voters in the South, a core demographic for Biden’s campaign.

Biden said he doesn’t think “you can buy an election.”

Meanwhile, so far, Pete Buttigieg has made it look easy.

The once little-known former mayor of a midsize Midwestern city vaulted over a former vice-president and several US senators in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire presidential primary. The 38-yearold’s fresh face, intellect and turn-the-page message won votes across many demographic groups in the kickoff states.

Now the promise of his candidacy is colliding with the reality of the central question about his viability: Can he win among minority voters who form the critical foundation of the party’s base?

That will be tested Saturday in Nevada, with a diverse blend of Latinos and African Americans, but especially in South Carolina, where two-thirds of the primary electorate could be black voters, the base of the Democratic Party that Buttigieg has struggled to attract.

Buttigieg’s strategy is to earn a fresh look from black and brown voters by flashing his support in the first two contests, drawing on the validation of minority leaders who have endorsed him and leveraging the personal networks of his supporters.

With the South Carolina primary rapidly approaching Feb 29, he faces a steep climb.

“I’ve not seen any real support coming from black local officials. Pete has to make the case himself,” said state Sen Gerald Malloy, a longtime supporter of former vice-president Joe Biden’s who has not endorsed a 2020 candidate. “He’s obviously a tireless warrior and making the calls. The question is: Will people answer?”

The former South Bend, Indiana, mayor, who has registered negligible support among black voters nationally, has been to South Carolina 10 times and has been airing ads on black radio stations in South Carolina since last fall, as well as ads in black newspapers.

He has been airing TV ads in the state since December, and this month began a spot reflecting his call for parting with the politics of the past.

In it, Walter A. Clyburn Reed, the grandson of Rep James Clyburn of South Carolina, the highest-ranking African American in the House, and Abe Jenkins, grandson of civil rights activist Esau Jenkins, pay tribute to their forebears but call Buttigieg “a fresh start.”

It and other ads blanketing YouTube and Facebook reinforce Buttigieg’s heavy outreach to younger black voters, especially on college campuses, such as the historically black institutions South Carolina State University and Claflin University in Orangeburg.

Reed said college students are intrigued by Buttigieg’s Douglass Plan, aimed at ending systemic racism, but especially are drawn to his call for a culture of belonging.

“That’s something that they haven’t heard from a candidate,” Reed said. “So, really, when he started to hone in on that message, college voters were very attracted to it.”

But for older black voters, both in South Carolina and Nevada, Buttigieg faces another kind of test: whether they will vote for a gay candidate.

Joan Houston, a 63-year-old African American minister and social worker in Las Vegas, said she can’t support Buttigieg because of his sexual orientation.