With the Nevada caucuses less than a week away, Democratic presidential candidates campaigning this weekend were fixated on a rival who was not contesting the state.
Former US vice president Joe Biden, US senators Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren, and former South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg all targeted the billionaire former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, accusing him of buying his way into the election and making clear they were eager to take him on in a debate.
“He thinks he can buy this election,” Sanders said at a Sunday rally in Carson City, Nevada. “Well, I’ve got news for Mr Bloomberg — the American people are sick and tired of billionaires buying elections.”
Their attacks are a sign of how seriously the field is starting to take Bloomberg, as he gains traction in the race and is on the cusp of qualifying for tomorrow’s Democratic debate in Las Vegas.
Bloomberg has bypassed the traditional early voting states, including Nevada, focusing instead on the 14 states that vote in the Super Tuesday primary on March 3.
He has spent more than US$417 million of his own fortune on advertising nationwide, an unprecedented sum for any candidate in a primary.
The focus on Bloomberg comes amid anxiety among many establishment-aligned Democrats over the early strength of Sanders, who won last week’s New Hampshire primary and essentially tied for first place in Iowa with Buttigieg.
Sanders is hoping to notch a victory in Nevada on Saturday as moderates struggle to unite behind a candidate who could serve as a counter to the Vermont senator, who has long identified as a democratic socialist.
The hundreds of millions of dollars that Bloomberg has pumped into the Super Tuesday states has only heightened the sense of uncertainty surrounding the Democratic race.
At Sanders’ rally, the crowded cheered as the senator joked that Bloomberg is “struggling, he’s down to his last US$60 billion” and derided him for skipping the early primary states.
It marked an escalation of the salvo Sanders launched on Saturday against Bloomberg, when he ticked off a litany of conservative positions Bloomberg has taken in the past, including opposing a minimum wage hike and his opposition to a number of former US president Barack Obama’s policies.
On Saturday, Sanders suggested Bloomberg’s past conservatism and controversial comments make him a weak candidate against US President Donald Trump, charging that Bloomberg, “with all his money, will not create the kind of excitement and energy we need” to beat Trump.
And on Sunday, he was joined by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who introduced Sanders with an attack of his own on his predecessor, telling the crowd: “I’m sorry to report to you the chief proponent of stop and frisk is now running for president.”
Klobuchar, speaking on CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday, accused Bloomberg of avoiding scrutiny by blanketing the airwaves and sidestepping debates or tough televised interviews.
“I think he cannot hide behind the airwaves and the money,” she said. “I think he has to come on the shows. And I personally think he should be on the debate stage.”
“I’m never going to beat him on the airwaves, but I can beat him on the debate stage,” she said.
Biden, speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, suggested that Bloomberg would face increased scrutiny as the race continued, pointing to his record on issues relating to race.
“US$60 billion can buy you a lot of advertising, but it can’t erase your record,” he said.
Biden knocked Bloomberg’s past support of stop-and-frisk policing policies, and his comments suggesting cracking down on racist mortgage lending practices, known as “redlining,” contributed to the financial crisis, as well as his 2008 refusal to endorse Obama for president.
Bloomberg has been airing ads that tie him closely to Obama on issues like gun control and climate change.
When asked on MSNBC about whether Bloomberg shares the values of the Democratic Party, Warren also went after the former mayor over his comments on redlining, saying that “anyone who is out there trying to blame African Americans for the financial crash of 2008 ... is not someone who should be representing our party.”
Buttigieg likened Bloomberg to Trump, when asked about reports that Bloomberg made sexist comments toward women and fostered a culture of sexism at his company.
“I think he’s going to have to answer for that and speak to it,” Buttigieg said.
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