Jacob Ogles
Presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg released a plan on Saturday to rebuild a “blue wall” for Democrats.
That includes opening offices in Philadelphia, Detroit and Milwaukee, a concerted effort to solidify Pennsylvania’s, Michigans’s and Wisconsin’s electoral votes in 2020.
“Today, we’re opening offices in Philadelphia, Detroit and Milwaukee. We’re also funding digital advertisements against Trump and will be registering voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In 2016, those states were supposed to be our ‘blue wall’ and we can’t wait until the general election to start rebuilding it,” Bloomberg said.
“The only way we’re going to beat Trump in November is to run statewide campaigns in swing states starting right now, and that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
Notably, the strategy turns its efforts toward states that went Democrat for most of the last 20 years but which President Donald Trump won in 2016.
But this is the start of what the Bloomberg team said will be a “national campaign with an unparalleled state structure.” He’s already got a staff of more than 200 on the ground in 19 states (though none yet in Florida). The campaign said it remains focused on the most delegate-rich states with March primary contests.
This week, Bloomberg also opened campaign offices in Charlotte, N.C. and in Nashville, Tenn., unveiling his health care policy in the latter state.
In each of the major cities where he’s opening offices this weekend, Bloomberg will travel and meet with businesses and voters. He announced earlier this week he was tapping former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter as national chair for his campaign.
The former New York City mayor and billionaire has also continued to hammer in his chief campaign message. Namely, that his experience in the past gives him the right skills to be president, and that he has the resources to go toe to toe with Trump in 2020.
He’s proven the latter. Though his campaign is just a few weeks old, he has already pumped $57 million into TV ads and another $24 million into digital ones as of Dec. 20.
Though some Democrats have been critical of his late entry into the race, mayors have come to his defense. In Florida, he’s earned some praise — but not an endorsement — from St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman, who also stressed that giving primary voters more choice is a good thing.
And his decidedly centrist views put him in a different lane than the current top-tier candidates in the race. Unlike the “Medicare For All” plan being pushed by U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, he favors restoring the provisions that have been carved out of the Affordable Care Act since Trump took office while adding some new measures to reduce policy premiums, including a federal reinsurance program for the individual market.
