Michael Bloomberg ridiculed by Democrat contenders

Michael Bloomberg faced mockery from Dem contenders and discouraging poll numbers as he took the first steps towards entering the White House race.

Four per cent of Democratic primary voters would support Mr Bloomberg if he ran. Picture: AFP

Michael Bloomberg faced mockery from Democratic frontrunners and discouraging poll numbers on Monday as the former mayor of New York took the first tentative step towards entering the race for the White House.

Four per cent of Democratic primary voters would support Mr Bloomberg if he ran, according to the first poll since he signalled that he may join the race late last week. That put him ahead of 10 candidates in a crowded field.

However, the poll by Morning Consult suggested his entry would do little to dent support for Joe Biden, the former vice-president and leading moderate contender.

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Thirty-one per cent said that they would support Mr Biden, 76. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who have more radical left-wing agendas, were behind Mr Biden on 20 per cent and 18 per cent respectively.

Concern that Mr Biden was stumbling on the campaign trail is said to have caused Mr Bloomberg, 77, to consider running. He is said to have become anxious that Senator Warren would win the primary but that her progressive tax cuts and universal healthcare would prove too radical for general election voters next year.

Senator Sanders, 78, dismissed this calculation as presumptuous. “That is the arrogance of billionaires,” he told ABC News in a joint interview with congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a heroine of the Democratic base who has endorsed his candidacy.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is joined on stage by Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Picture: AFP

S enator Sanders noted reports that Mr Bloomberg would skip states which vote early, where a strong grassroots campaign is all but essential, and focus on larger states that hold primaries in the spring, including California and Texas, where he could afford to spend on large television campaigns.

“When you are worth $US50bn I guess you don’t have to have town hall meetings and you don’t have to talk to ordinary people,” he said. “You take out a couple of billion dollars and you buy the state of California.”

On Saturday, when an interviewer from the Des Moines Register mentioned a report that the Amazon owner Jeff Bezos had asked Mr Bloomberg to consider running for the presidency, Senator Sanders laughed so hard that for a while he could not answer the question. “Of course,” he said at last. “The billionaires are looking out for each other.”

Senator Warren, 70, also poured scorn. “One billionaire calls another billionaire and asks him to run for president — I’m shocked!” she tweeted. “Companies like Amazon have too much power and billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Mike Bloomberg should pitch in so that everyone can succeed.”

In New Hampshire Mr Biden described Mr Bloomberg as “a solid guy” but added: “The last polls I looked at, I’m pretty far ahead.”

Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar, 59, a moderate candidate, said Mr Bloomberg had done “incredible work on gun safety, on environmental issues” but seemed to be out of step with the party. “When people look at the White House and see this multimillionaire (Donald Trump) — including, by the way, independents and moderate Republicans — and now he’s messing up so many things, I don’t think they say, ‘Oh, we need someone richer’,” she told CNN. “I think you have to earn votes and not buy them.”

The Times