Micheal Bloomberg: the multi-billion dollar business owner of Bloomberg L.P. and former mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013. When he announced his presidential run in late November of 2019, it was a surprise to everyone. There were more primary candidates than ever before and historically those who enter the race late don’t have much luck in the elections, but his late entrance seems to be defying past norms with polls showing him in third or fourth place.

   Bloomberg is a former Republican who became a Democrat in 2018, with more conservative views regarding school, business, and law enforcement. This seems worrisome for many Democrats but, after Trump’s radical Republican plans and the prospect of radical Democrat plans from people like Sanders and Warren, someone in the middle might be the breath of fresh air voters are looking for. Though there are many moderates in the primary race right now they simply don’t have the level of funds and resources that Bloomberg has. 

   With a plethora of television and social media advertisements (spending a record $381 million dollars), the majority of American voters have seen his face or platform somewhere. He even ran a 60-second ad in the Superbowl, which costed him $10 million, as a counter to President Trump’s ad. Though other democratic candidates have accused him of buying his way to a presidency, his supporters feel like this puts him on an even playing field with Trump. This kind of reach could be what gives him the leg up over other candidates. 

   When Bloomberg came into the race he made the risky decision, one that only someone rich could make, to skip the first four primary states (which make up 5% of the delegates) and instead focusing his time in the 16 states that are going to be voting on Super Tuesday (March 3rd). This could give him some promising results, especially since there has been a lot of positive responses to his platforms. Key Democrats such as Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi have come out and voiced their support for Bloomberg. “As far as Michael Bloomberg is concerned, I think that his involvement in this campaign will be a positive one,” Pelosi said to reporters. 

   Another reason why his chances for success are so high is because of the state of the primaries right now. “A lot of things had to go right for Bloomberg’s candidacy to go off”, said Jim Kessler,  the senior vice president for policy and a co-founder of Third Way. It required there to be a large democratic primary with no clear frontrunner going into Super Tuesday and there isn’t. 

    Everyone has claimed that they can be the ones to fight and take a stand against Trump, but it takes resources and money to be able to do so, and Bloomberg has both of those things. His late start has not seemed to hinder him in the least and it would not be surprising to see him leading the polls in the next couple of weeks.