Michael Bloomberg Is Late In The Electoral Game

Rosa Elera/Contributing Writer

This campaign season has had more candidates on the Democratic debate stage then at any other time in history. The list is long enough that the debate program had to be split into two nights. 

But just as we thought we had reached full capacity, we heard that former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is entering his bid for Presidency. With a political atmosphere that is already intensely competitive, Bloomberg is only adding more flames to the fire that most Democrats want tamed down. 

We are fast approaching primaries, and most candidates are now resorting to the best tactics they have stored to engage voters who might be on the fence. By this time, many Democratic voters have made up their mind or have chosen a top three list to consider when making their final decision during the primary elections. 

This past summer, I had the opportunity to study abroad in Angers, France; while there, I befriended various Americans from cities across the United States. Like many American interactions, our conversations would always find its way into politics, and one of the common sentiments shared among my new group of friends was the chaos they saw from the Democratic Party.

I’ve experienced this sentiment from my fellow classmates abroad and back at home at FIU, and it made me realize the overload of campaigns that have been pushing to win voters in the recent months. Having Bloomberg join the race with issues that most Democratic candidates have covered on the campaign trail extensively—like gun safety, education, health care and the environment—could be over saturating for any voter. 

Bloomberg is not only late in the game, but is badly advised if he’s strongly considering this a viable option.  He’s a wealthy businessman who, unlike current President Trump, actually has political experience running the city of New York. While he may strongly believe that this plays in his favor, it’s actually not even close enough.

Young voters have become an important and loud voice in politics today; the stop and frisk policies placed by Bloomberg affected young black and Latino men who were racially profiled by the New York Police Department. He says these were done to bring down crime in the city, yet when his succesor Bill De Blasio came into office and got rid of these racial profiling policies, crime in Manhattan saw an all-time low.

Bloomberg’s push and installment of this policy was not favorable then and certainly not in these times. He’s running in an era where many voters are growing tired of a businessman president who doesn’t know or even listens to his advisors on national and foreign policy, nevertheless a candidate who doesn’t seem to be remorseful for his past mistakes. 

Bloomberg’s views on climate change and putting an end to the coal industry may be vastly different than that of Trump’s, but his strong relationship as well as donations to Republicans and Trump himself is still too close for comfort for several Democratic voters.

Several college voters are strongly supportive and showing indicative of who they’ll be choosing to vote for in the primaries and who they’ll be backing in the general elections next November. This means that Bloomberg entering the race is less likely to move or shift the trajectory voters have established and instead will cause annoyance among voters. 

While Bloomberg may not be the worst candidate, he’s nowhere near having a successful campaign, especially so close to the primaries. He can, in the meantime, work on rebranding his campaign and fixing his past mistakes that affected the daily lives of the Hispanic and African American communities in New York. If he really wants to get elected, he needs to hit the ground running in the next election.

Featured image by Ralph Alswang for Center for American Progress on Flickr.

 

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