AFTER ROUGH DEBATE, BLOOMBERG GOES ON ATTACK
Warns nominating Sanders will result in victory for Trump
SALT LAKE CITY
After a poor performance in a ferocious Democratic debate, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg faced voters and the news media at a Thursday morning event in Utah as his campaign reckoned with the fallout from the televised verbal combat, which undercut all four moderate Democrats onstage at times and left Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren looking strengthened.
Bloomberg, trying to move on quickly from the debate, used the Utah event to intensify his attacks on Sanders, the current polling leader in the field. He argued that nominating Sanders, a self-identified democratic socialist who has passionate support in the party’s left wing, would lead to defeat against President Donald Trump in November.
“If we choose a candidate who appeals to a small base — like Senator Sanders — it will be a fatal error,” Bloomberg said. “We need Democrats and independents and Republicans to win.” Referring to the suburban moderate voters who helped Democrats win back the House in 2018, he added,
“That was the coalition that propelled Democrats to success in the midterms — and it’s the coalition that we need to win in November.”
But behind the scenes Thursday, Bloomberg campaign officials were trying to assess how the debate would affect Bloomberg’s standing with voters just as he was beginning to break through on a national level. His inability to respond effectively to attacks over his wealth and his record on gender, race, stop-and-frisk policing tactics and other issues as a mayor and businessman in New York risked seriously harming his message that he would be the most competent and capable opponent in a general election against Trump.
Campaign officials acknowledged that Bloomberg, who is typically not one to shy away from conf lict, held back when confronted. His campaign manager, Kevin Sheekey, alluded to the candidate’s atypical restraint in a statement, saying, “He was just warming up.”
“Everyone came to destroy Mike,” Sheekey said. “It didn’t happen. Everyone wanted him to lose his cool. He didn’t do it. He was the grown-up in the room.”
Bloomberg and his rivals drew a huge audience, and many voters were probably getting their first taste of the former mayor beyond his record-setting advertising onslaught. The debate averaged nearly 20 million viewers on NBC and MSNBC, the biggest live television audience ever for a Democratic debate, and millions more watched online, the networks said.
David Axelrod, the architect of Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns, said Bloomberg’s debate debut was “kind of a disaster, and predictably so.”
But he said Bloomberg’s voracious budget for television advertising — the former mayor has spent hundreds of millions of dollars so far — could paper over some of the deficiencies exposed on the debate stage. “One of the reasons he’s making gains is, he’s reaching a lot of people that way,” Axelrod said.
Bloomberg’s team sought to capitalize on an effective debate moment for him, posting a video on his Twitter account Thursday morning that showed him emphasizing his business experience. But the video was deceptively edited to make it seem as if his statement had left the other candidates speechless for about 20 seconds.
Peters writes for The New York Times.