Underestimate Michael R. Bloomberg at your own risk

[Suburbia]

Media mogul and billionaire Michael Bloomberg was not expected to be mayor of N.Y.C. in the first place. It was supposed to be Mark J. Green (a former Nader protege), Fernando Ferrer (the then-Bronx Borough President), and Peter Vallone (socially conservative White Catholic ethnic). Any one of these men could have been a presidential contender after 9/11 with leading the city. Bloomberg won in a upset, won reelection in 2005 and **2009** (he changed the city rules to run for a third term as Mayor). Bloomberg could gain traction if Trump, Sanders, Clinton are too negative or polarizing for the country. I don't think he will win, but underestimate him at your own peril.

http://web.archive.org/web/20011001073806/http://www.vallone2001.com/index.cfm

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/02/nyregion/democrats-run-in-the-shadow-cast-by-mayor.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/green-takes-rudy-win-path-center-key-victory-article-1.939059

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Bloomberg is just an idle threat to Bernie supporters for not supporting Hillary.

[This account no longer in use.]

lol nope

[Antonio the Sixth]

lulz

[RR1997]

I'm a Bloomberg supporter, but he'd do awfully. He'd only get 1.5%-5% of the vote after spending $1 billion-$2 billion on the race (thus massively outspending both Sanders and TRUMP).

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

What is this even?

[Asian Nazi]

Okay, this Bloomberg sh*t is even worse than the Berniebots.

[Mike Thick]

Okay, this Bloomberg sh*t is even worse than the Berniebots.

I'll wait until it's more commonplace to pass judgement, but it seems to be heading in that direction.

[RR1997]

Okay, this Bloomberg sh*t is even worse than the Berniebots.

He's giving Bloomberg supporters a bad name. I'm a Bloomberg supporter, but I accept the fact that he'd do terribly. He would only get around 3% of the vote, with 1.5% being his floor and 5% being his ceiling.

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

Bloombots may have become worse than Berniebots....this is even possible?!?!?

[RR1997]

Anything could happen though. I remember back in June when Trump announced that he was running. He had incredibly low approval ratings amongst GOP voters and was polling at 3%. People wrote him off has a joke candidate. He became so desperate that he paid people to cheer him on during his announcement speech. Atlasians kept talking about how he wouldn't get over 5% of the vote. People kept talking about how he only appealed to a very small portion of the GOP, and wouldn't come close to winning. Anyone who said that Trump had a shot at winning was called a troll and unrealistic. No one saw Trump's rise coming. No one predicted that a bunch of working-class whites would support him. Now he's the GOP front runner. Anything could happen guys. Bloomberg might actually do good, although this is very unlikely. The media does have a history of underestimating Bloomberg. The chances of Bloomberg exceeding 5% of the vote is 0.00001% though.

[RR1997]

I'm also pretty sure that bronz4141 is not a Bloomberg supporter. I think he's just pointing the fact that the media constantly underestimates Bloomberg and that anything could happen. A significant portion of the media believed that Bloomberg would lose the 2001 and 2009 mayoral elections, but he proved them wrong.

Bloomberg would not come close to winning the presidency though.

[Suburbia]

I'm just saying that there is a group of voters that despise Sanders, Clinton, Trump. They are true centrists in this country that could say no more left/right politics. We'll see.

[Asian Nazi]

I'm just saying that there is a group of voters that despise Sanders, Clinton, Trump. They are true centrists in this country that could say no more left/right politics. We'll see.

True centrists support TRUMP

[RR1997]

Bloomberg is too left-wing for most Republicans and too rich for most Democrats.

[Suburbia]

I'm also pretty sure that bronz4141 is not a Bloomberg supporter. I think he's just pointing the fact that the media constantly underestimates Bloomberg and that anything could happen. A significant portion of the media believed that Bloomberg would lose the 2001 and 2009 mayoral elections, but he proved them wrong.

Bloomberg would not come close to winning the presidency though.

He won a landslide in 2005 against Fernando Ferrer, who was vying to be the first Latino mayor of New York City. Imagine if Ferrer had beaten Bloomberg in 2005.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

If anything, people tend to grossly overestimate possible independent/third party runs, despite electoral history pointing to the contrary.

[Mr. Morden]

Bloomberg would be an extreme longshot to win under any scenario, but I do think Jonathan Chait is on the right track here for why he might do better than most of you seem to expect he would in a hypothetical Bloomberg-Sanders-Trump race:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/02/why-bloomberg-could-run-for-president-and-win.html

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[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

After bearing witness to the Rise of Trump, I'm certainly not going to underestimate the appeal of other vaguely-fascist New York billionaires.

[King of Kensington]

How large is the "too rich to vote Sanders, too educated to vote for Trump" demographic?

[AltWorlder]

After bearing witness to the Rise of Trump, I'm certainly not going to underestimate the appeal of other vaguely-fascist New York billionaires.

The question is, how many can one race support?