Michael Bloomberg’s flirtation with a 2020 presidential bid just won’t end. Last year, it was reported that the former New York City mayor was considering a run for the White House as a Democrat. Then in March of this year, he put the rumors to rest, writing in a column that he would pass up the chance to take on Trump. “I believe I would defeat Donald Trump in a general election. But I am clear-eyed about the difficulty of winning the Democratic nomination in such a crowded field,” he wrote at the time.
It only took a month for new rumors to begin. This time, reports suggested that Bloomberg was considering running if Joe Biden didn’t.
Biden, of course, is running for president. But after months as the clear Democratic front-runner, he’s recently seen his standing slip, with Elizabeth Warren edging past him in recent national polls. That reportedly has Bloomberg concerned, as CNBC reports:
Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York, has indicated to associates in recent weeks that Joe Biden’s recent struggles against Sen. Elizabeth Warren are making him rethink his decision to stay out of the 2020 Democratic primary. That’s according to people familiar with the discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity because the conversations were deemed private.
Those people caution that Bloomberg would need Biden to fall much further before he takes the plunge. “Bloomberg is in if Biden is out,” a source told CNBC.
But that doesn’t seem likely to happen, at least at this point. Even if Biden is no longer the clear front-runner, he’s still in good position to win the primaries. And even if the former veep was close to dropping out, there’s only one person who thinks Democratic-primary voters are eager to vote for a 77-year-old former Republican and it’s Bloomberg himself.
