Bloomberg: I Will Not Enter Presidential Race

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Bloomberg, 74, who had said the 2016 presidential campaign has been marred by appeals to extremism and was an insult to voters, was expected to spend a sizable amount of his own fortune if he entered the race.

“Over the last several months, many Americans have urged me to run for president as an independent, and some who don’t like the current candidates have said it is my patriotic duty to do so. I appreciate their appeals, and I have given the question serious consideration. The deadline to answer it is now, because of ballot access requirements,” Bloomberg wrote in an editorial on Bloomberg View.

“But when I look at the data, it’s clear to me that if I entered the race, I could not win. I believe I could win a number of diverse states — but not enough to win the 270 Electoral College votes necessary to win the presidency,” Bloomberg wrote.

Bloomberg’s advisers had said privately they felt they could get enough signatures on petitions to place him on ballots in all 50 states. Their rationale was grounded in a belief that Democrats and Republicans offered relatively inexperienced or ideologically driven candidates. Republican Donald Trump, the bombastic billionaire and television celebrity who is that party’s front-runner, has insulted opponents and vowed to bar Muslims from entering the U.S. He and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described socialist, hold views opposed to Bloomberg’s avowed principles.

His decision to stay out coincided with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s increasing tally of Democratic delegates won in primary election victories during the past two weeks. Bloomberg has known Clinton for decades, and worked closely with her between 2001 and 2009, while he served as mayor and she represented New York in the U.S. Senate.

Bloomberg faced the historic hurdle that no independent or third-party presidential candidate has won the presidency. Scholars and analysts said it wasn’t clear that there was a realistic path for Bloomberg under the two-party system. An Associated Press poll Feb. 24 reported that 7 percent of registered voters said they definitely would vote for him, while 29 percent said they’d consider it. About six in 10 Democrats and Republicans ruled out voting for him, according to the poll.

In order to win, Bloomberg would have had to win pluralities in enough states to capture 270 electoral votes. The Constitution also provides for the election to be thrown into the House of Representatives to decide if no candidate can secure those votes, though that method has been used only twice, after the elections in 1800 and 1824. That body is controlled by a Republican majority.

“Unfortunately for him, the structural deck is stacked against him,” said Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, in an interview last month after Bloomberg told the Financial Times he was considering a candidacy.

Read Bloomberg’s full article at Bloomberg View.

(C) 2016, Bloomberg · Henry Goldman 

{Matzav.com Newscenter}


4 COMMENTS

  1. We are just in such shock! How can it be that our only savior, Mike Bl$$mberg is not running?! He was willing to step out of his ivory tower for the benefit of the peasants, and just like that, retreat??? I don’t know how life can continue! This is truly a sad day in America.

  2. I like the picture you posted of Bloomberg. I see he was finally told that the rest of the country out of NYC cant stand him. Good riddance Mike.

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