Bloomberg: I will defeat Trump

Michael Bloomberg says he wants to rebuild America.

Michael Bloomberg has announced he is running for United States President, pitting the billionaire businessman and former mayor of New York City against a crowded field of Democrats vying to take on Donald Trump in 2020.

With just over two months to go until the Iowa caucuses, Bloomberg said in a statement on Sunday that he was running for president to defeat Trump and “rebuild America.”

His entry into the race creates a conundrum for Bloomberg News, the media group he owns, which produces extensive political coverage.

John Micklethwait, editor-in-chief, said Bloomberg News would stop running unsigned editorials and would neither investigate Bloomberg nor his Democratic rivals.

The media group would continue investigating Trump, he added.

Bloomberg, 77, said his “unique set of experiences in business, government, and philanthropy” would enable him to “win and lead.”

He joins 18 other Democrats competing for their party’s presidential nomination, including three other septuagenarians: former vice-president Joe Biden, 77, Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, 70, and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, 78.

Political analysts say Bloomberg’s entry to the race will damage the prospects of fellow centrist Biden, who had been seen as the frontrunner when he launched his campaign earlier this year, but whose support has declined in recent months.

Biden’s candidacy has already been challenged by Warren, who is running on a progressive platform of “big structural change,” and Sanders, whose leftwing credentials energize parts of the Democratic base.

More recently, Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has emerged to lead the field in polling in the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

Bloomberg is expected to skip Iowa and New Hampshire and instead focus his campaigning efforts on the more than a dozen states that will hold their primary contests on 3 March, Super Tuesday.

His aides insist Bloomberg sees a clear path to victory based on his record in the private and public sectors.

Last March, Bloomberg said he would better serve the country as a private citizen.

“I know there’s much more we can accomplish over the next two years, but only if we stay focused on the work and expand upon it,” he wrote. “And the fact is: A national presidential campaign would limit my ability to do that.” (Financial Times, The Hill)