Bloomberg opts not to mount third-party bid for White House

By JONATHAN LEMIRE

Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) – Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday that he will not run for president as an independent – a move that would have roiled this year’s already extraordinarily unpredictable presidential campaign.

The billionaire, who has spent months mulling a third-party run, made his decision official through an editorial posted by the Bloomberg View, writing that he believes his candidacy would send the race to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and would likely lead to the election of Donald Trump or Ted Cruz.

"That is not a risk I can take in good conscience," Bloomberg wrote.

Bloomberg was blistering in his critique of Trump, currently the GOP front-runner, saying the real estate mogul has run "the most divisive and demagogic presidential campaign I can remember, preying on people’s prejudices and fears."

He was similarly critical of Cruz, saying the Texas senator’s "pandering on immigration may lack Trump’s rhetorical excess, but it is no less extreme."

He acknowledged that he and Trump had been on "friendly terms" and that he had twice agreed to be on his reality TV show "The Apprentice." But the former mayor said that Trump’s campaign "appeals to our worst impulses."

"We cannot ‘make America great again’ by turning our backs on the values that made us the world’s greatest nation in the first place," Bloomberg wrote. "I love our country too much to play a role in electing a candidate who would weaken our unity and darken our future — and so I will not enter the race for president of the United States."

Bloomberg made only an oblique reference Democrats Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders and did not endorse a candidate.

The former three-term mayor – who had indicated he’d have spent $1 billion of his own money on the run – had set a mid-March deadline for his team of advisers to assess the feasibility of mounting a run, believing that waiting longer would imperil his ability to complete the petition process needed to get on the ballots in all 50 states.

He had taken some initial steps, cutting a mock TV ad, preparing to open campaign offices in Texas and North Carolina – states with early ballot access deadlines – and having aides begin to vet possible vice presidential candidates.

Those close to the process said Bloomberg had believed the dominance of Trump among Republicans and the rise of Sanders amid Democrats had opened a centrist lane for a non-ideological, pragmatic campaign. But Clinton’s string of recent victories has given her a firm grip on the lead for the Democratic nomination and is blocking Bloomberg’s possible path, aides to the mayor said.

The decision concludes Bloomberg’s third and likely final flirtation with a White House run, a possibility that had grown popular among New York’s business class and, the mayor’s aides had believed, could have resonated with moderates and independents across the nation.

Aides to Bloomberg, the 74-year-old Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-Democrat-turned independent, have said their own polling suggested that Bloomberg had a viable path to the needed 270 electoral votes if Trump and Sanders were the nominees.

But as Clinton surged, Bloomberg – known largely outside New York for his crusades against guns and Big Soda, positions likely unpopular with Republicans nationwide – grew worried that he would siphon more support from her than Trump, ensuring that part of the mayor’s carefully managed legacy would be that he helped give Trump the White House.

If Clinton won, Bloomberg’s aides believed he had enough support to send the race to the House – but not to win there. A

One of the richest people in the United States estimated to be worth $38 billion, Bloomberg has previously toyed with presidential runs, but concluded ahead of the 2008 and 2012 campaigns he could not win.

The founder of the financial news and information provider Bloomberg LP, he was a political novice when he launched an unlikely bid for mayor in 2001.

He is largely a social liberal – he fought for same-sex marriage in New York and is pro-abortion rights – and implemented a number of health reforms in New York City, banning smoking in public places and instituting calorie counts on menus.

He has also become arguably the nation’s most vocal proponent of gun control, using his fortune to bankroll candidates across the country who clash with the National Rifle Association. But liberals have found fault with his cozy ties to Wall Street and his unquestioned support for the New York Police Department, which drove down crime during his tenure but engaged in tactics that a federal judge later ruled discriminated against minorities.

After leaving office, he returned to running his company, which posted $9 billion in revenue last year, and continues to run his foundation. He gave away more than $500 million in 2015.

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Associated Press writer Julie Pace contributed to this report.

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