Thanks to an early filing deadline in Alabama, we already had a pretty good idea that Michael Bloomberg was running for president. Now, we are beyond certain.
The billionaire former Mayor of The Big Apple has made if officially official now: He will be attempting to secure the Democratic nomination for the presidency in order to battle it would with fellow wealthy New Yorker Donald Trump in 2020.
“I’m running for president to defeat Donald Trump and rebuild America,” Bloomberg said on his campaign website. “We cannot afford four more years of President Trump’s reckless and unethical actions. He represents an existential threat to our country and our values. If he wins another term in office, we may never recover from the damage.”
Bloomberg’s entry was preceded by news of a massive television ad buy — $31 million, according to Advertising Analytics, which said it was the single largest single week expenditure the firm had ever tracked. A $30 million buy in the final weeks of the 2012 race for then-President Barack Obama held the previous record.
The ad promotes Bloomberg’s record as mayor in the aftermath of 9/11 as well as his post-mayoral work campaigning for gun control and against the coal lobby.
Bloomberg’s timing is certainly well-thought-out, waiting until former frontrunner Joe Biden had slid even further in the polling, all thanks to the renewed interest in his son’s business dealings with a Ukrainian natural gas company.
