Bloomberg won’t quit despite loss
MIAMI: Billionaire Michael Bloomberg said on Tuesday that he does not plan to drop out of the Democratic presidential race to clear a path to the nomination for fellow moderate Joe Biden.
“Have you asked Joe whether he’s going to drop out?” the former New York mayor shot back at a reporter who asked if he would quit the race if he performs poorly in the Super Tuesday primaries.
“Joe’s taking votes away from me,” Bloomberg added of the former vice president, who received endorsements on Monday from several moderate former rivals for the spot on the Democratic ticket in November against Republican Donald Trump.
“I have no intention of dropping out,” Mr Bloomberg told reporters in Florida, which holds its presidential primary on March 17. “We’re in it to win it.”
Mr Bloomberg, despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars of his own money on advertising in the Super Tuesday states, acknowledged that he was unlikely to win any states outright.
The US media tycoon, who had entered the nomination contest last November with high hopes and deep pockets, invested a record $500 million (15.6 billion baht) from his personal fortune into advertising, before his name even appeared on a single ballot.
But results ultimately showed Mr Bloomberg facing a crushing fourth place finish in no fewer than five of the 14 Super Tuesday states, including key battleground Virginia, where he came up empty after reportedly sinking $18 million into advertising and ground operations in the state, dozens of times more than winner Biden invested there.
One consolation: he was projected to win in the remote Pacific island territory of American Samoa, hardly the nation’s heartland.
“Bloomberg spent $500 million and won American Samoa. Bad business model,” one user razzed on Twitter.