Michael Bloomberg has allocated $500 million to deny President Trump a second term in 2020, either by running himself or by providing funding and data to the eventual Democratic nominee, according to Politico.
Should Bloomberg decide to run — a decision he plans to make in the coming weeks — he believes the $500 million war chest would finance his campaign through the primaries, at which point he plans to invest more of his personal fortune should he win the nomination.
“That’ll get us through the first few months,” Bloomberg’s top adviser Kevin Sheekey told Politico.
“Mike spent $100 million in his last New York City election. And you can do the math as you think more broadly but New York City is 3 percent of the national population,” Sheekey said. “I’m not suggesting it’s straight math. But I’m suggesting that when Mike Bloomberg is committed to making a difference and seeing something though, generally speaking he’s pretty unabashed in doing so.”
In the event that he chooses not to run, he intends to continue building out extensive voter profiles and collecting other data that he believes will prove essential to the Democratic nominee.
The former New York City mayor has already developed a core staff that meets once-a-week to determine the viability of his own personal run, which has already faced staunch opposition from other Democratic contenders critical of the idea of self-funding a presidential campaign.
“I think this is a moment for all of the Democratic candidates as they come into the race to say: In a Democratic primary, we are going to link arms and we’re going to grass-roots funding. No to the billionaires,” Warren told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow in January.
“No to the billionaires whether they are self-funding or whether they’re funding PACs. We are the Democratic Party, and that is the party of the people. That’s how we not only win elections, that’s how we build movements that make real change.”