Mike Bloomberg: His quest for a contested convention
Mar 3, 2020, 1:20 PM | Updated: 1:23 pm
FILE - Democratic presidential candidate, former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg speaks to supporters at a rally on February 20, 2020 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Bloomberg is making his second visit to Utah before it votes on Super Tuesday, March 3. (Photo by George Frey/Getty Images)
(Photo by George Frey/Getty Images)
SALT LAKE CITY — Former New York City Mayor and current Democratic candidate Michael Bloomberg says his plan ahead of Super Tuesday is to shoot for a brokered convention.
In an interview Tuesday aired on Inside Sources with Boyd Matheson, Bloomberg says he’s hoping to prevent any of the candidates from reaching the 1,991 delegates needed to become the Democratic candidate, which would result in a brokered convention.
“You’re not going to get the most delegates, I think that’s clear,” Bloomberg says.
“But you want a respectable finish where you get delegates in lots of states. Our strategy is to get to the convention with nobody having a majority. Then all the delegates [are] free, and they start thinking, ‘OK, who can beat Donald Trump and who can run the country?’ That’s where we will make our case. We’ve been trying to do that all across the country,” he says.
The last time that the United States saw a brokered convention happened in 1968 in Chicago.
Over one-third of the available delegates will up for grabs on Super Tuesday, and it will be the first time that Bloomberg will be on the ballot. FiveThirtyEight is predicting that Bloomberg will collect hundreds of delegates throughout Tuesday.
According to a combined Deseret News/Hinkley Institute of Politics poll, Bloomberg ranked second among Utah voters with 19 percent following Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders at 28 percent.
