Bloomberg to Stay in Race Pending Assessment of Super Tuesday

(Bloomberg) -- Michael Bloomberg plans to stay in the presidential race until after the results of Super Tuesday primaries are counted, his campaign manager said, rejecting calls from Democratic officials for the former New York mayor to drop out and make way for Joe Biden.

“We'll find out today how successful Mike has been and-or how successful the vice president has been, and I expect one of them to be the nominee and I expect the other to be supporting him,” Kevin Sheekey told reporters Tuesday.

Bloomberg won American Samoa on Tuesday but lost states where he was expected to be competitive, including Virginia and Oklahoma. Bernie Sanders won his home state of Vermont and Colorado, while Biden took Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama and Oklahoma.

Asked whether Bloomberg would reassess his position in the race after Tuesday's votes, Sheekey said “campaigns always assess after every election” but that the campaign is looking forward to competing in upcoming primaries, including in Florida, where Bloomberg campaigned on Tuesday ahead of its March 17 primary.

Another Bloomberg aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the campaign would look at the results but that the intent is to continue competing. Bloomberg himself brushed off questions earlier Tuesday about whether he would drop out of the race to avoid splitting the moderate vote.

“I'm in it to win it,” he said each time he was asked.

(Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)

Pressure is mounting on Bloomberg to exit the race, as Democratic Party officials growing increasingly concerned that his candidacy risks splitting centrist votes with Biden, effectively handing the nomination to progressive rival Sanders.

Sanders, the national front-runner, is expected to win California and do well in Texas -- the two biggest prizes among the 14 states holding primary contests on Tuesday.

Tuesday is the first time that Bloomberg has appeared on the presidential ballot after skipping the first four contests. Sheekey said that he expects Bloomberg to hit the 15% threshold in every Super Tuesday state and earn delegates to the party's national convention in July.

The former vice president, who had been lagging in polls, won the South Carolina primary on Saturday with half the vote and has garnered more than 100 endorsements from Democratic Party officials at every level.

Bloomberg said he expects no candidate will end up with the majority of pledged delegates needed to win the nomination on the first ballot at the convention, leaving a path for him to still become the nominee even with fewer delegates than other candidates.

“I don't think that I can win any other ways, but a contested convention is a democratic process,” Bloomberg said, when asked by reporters during a stop at a campaign office in Miami whether he wants a contested convention. “There are rules of the Democratic Party of how you go about this.”

Bloomberg rejected the notion that his campaign was taking votes from Biden, saying that the former vice president could be seen as taking votes away from him.

“Joe's taking votes away from me,” he said. “Have you asked Joe whether he's going to drop out?”

Read more: A QuickTake explainer on contested conventions

Of the 14 states voting on Tuesday, Bloomberg is ahead in the polls only in Arkansas and above the 15% threshold to earn delegates in Oklahoma, North Carolina and Virginia.

He said that he wasn't sure if he would win any states on Super Tuesday, which his campaign heavily targeted with hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising and early organizing. But he argued that doesn't matter.

“You don't have to win states; you have to win delegates,” he said.

Bloomberg repeated his criticism of Sanders that the self-described democratic socialist can't win and said he finds it “offensive” that Sanders supported a brokered convention in 2016 when Hillary Clinton had the delegate lead and is opposing that outcome this year.

He argued that he's the only Democrat who can attract the moderate Republicans and independents needed to beat President Donald Trump in November.

“I think people should vote for me, and I'm in it to win it,” he said.

--With assistance from Ryan Teague Beckwith.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Niquette in Miami, Florida at mniquette@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Magan Crane, Michael Shepard

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