Michael Bloomberg (77), former Wall Street banker turned entrepreneur is considering to run for the Oval Office, though the official announcement is awaited. His top adviser Howard Wolfson in a statement on Thursday said that Bloomberg considers that current field of candidates are not good enough to beat Trump.
"We now need to finish the job and ensure that Trump is defeated. But Mike is increasingly concerned that the current field of candidates are not well-positioned to do that", Wolfson said. "If Mike runs, he would offer a new choice to Democrats built on a unique record running America's biggest city, building a business from scratch and taking on some of America's toughest challenges as a high-impact philanthropist, he further added. He is expected to file the paperwork for Democratic presidential primary in Alabama, this week, the New York Times reported.
A former Democrat, Bloomberg switched his political affiliation to Republicans in 2001 and led a successful campaign for the post of New York City mayor. He won two more terms after that, thus stayed in office from 2001 to 2012. Though he became on independent in 2007, October last year, in an Instagram post, he announced of having switched back to the Democratic party, fueling speculations that he might run for the President in 2020.
As a moderate Democrat himself, he poses threat to the former Vice President Joe Biden, who has projected himself as a centrist alternative to far-right Presidential front-runners-Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders. Also, given his net worth of $53 billion, he posses a financial clout over other candidates. But his enormous wealth can also work to his disadvantage in the Democratic party that is moving further left in the populist atmosphere sweeping across the country.
Other than businessman and politician, Bloomberg is also a philanthropist having donated millions of dollars in causes such as climate change, education and public health. He has stood for gun-control laws, having founded 'Everytown for Gun Safety', a gun-control advocacy group in 2014.
Bloomberg is seen to have played a crucial role in last week Democrat's win in Virginia in which the party seized full control of the state's legislature, first time in over 20 years. He along with his gun-control group pumped over $2.5 million into the Democrat's campaign and outspent National Rifles Association, the pro-gun advocacy group active in a widely conservative Virginia.
