Michael Bloomberg Switches to Democratic Party Ahead of Possible 2020 Presidential Campaign

Michael Bloomberg Switches to Democratic Party Ahead of Possible 2020 Presidential Campaign

The Democrat turned Republican turned Independent re-registers as a Democrat with 2020 on his mind.

Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg announced in an Instagram post on Wednesday morning that he was changing his party affiliation for the third time this century.

“Today, I have re-registered as a Democrat,” part of the post read, “because we need Democrats to provide the checks and balance our nation so badly needs.”

Also, perhaps, because it’s the only way he can achieve his on-again, off-again aspirations of winning the White House. Speaking to the New York Times a few weeks ago about a possible candidacy in 2020, he conceded that winning as a Democrat was his only realistic option—as well as the only tasteful one. “It’s impossible to conceive that I could run as a Republican—things like choice, so many of the issues, I’m just way away from where the Republican party is today,” he said.

Yes, about that—he was “way away” from it well before yesterday, too. In October 2000, he switched his registration from Democrat to Republican, despite having donated $5,000 to NARAL in the recent past and telling the Washington Post just 12 months prior that he was “probably more of a liberal Democrat than most of [Bloomberg L.P.’s] customers.” But the 2001 mayoral race was a year off, and Bloomberg wanted no part of the four-way Democratic primary.

Despite rarely discussing his plans on the record in the lead-up to his campaign launch in June, it was openly acknowledged that his jump to the GOP was only for electoral convenience. A Daily News profile in March even claimed, unattributed, that “[h]e has said his reasons are purely strategic, aimed at separating himself from a crowded Continue reading: Michael Bloomberg Switches to Democratic Party Ahead of Possible 2020 Presidential Campaign