Billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has only officially been running for president for a few hours, but he already has a few skeptics on both sides of the political spectrum.
One of his 2020 rivals for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), said during an appearance on Sunday's edition of ABC's This Week that she doesn't think people are going to "buy" Bloomberg's run, especially if his argument centers around having more money than President Trump. "I think they want someone different," Klobuchar said, referring to voters.
"I don't have that money ... but I have actually gotten things done in the gridlock of Washington," Klobuchar says about Bloomberg's $37 million ad buy.
"Here's my difference with the mayor: I have won major rural districts, major suburban districts." https://t.co/oSzgFTPwwL pic.twitter.com/pdwTyQFGIe— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) November 24, 2019
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway actually had some compliments ready to go for Bloomberg while on CBS' Face the Nation on Sunday, saying he was a "great mayor" when she lived in New York. But she suggested Americans won't want to bring a billionaire into the Oval Office, painting Trump's 2016 campaign as a rag-tag group in an attempt to differentiate the two despite their wealth. Even if Bloomberg could win the general election, Conway doesn't suspect he'll be able to win over Democrats in the first place.
There might be something to that, analyst Joel Payne said at a different point on Face the Nation. Payne's point was that Bloomberg's time spent as an independent over the last 10 years (not to mention the fact that he served as a Republican while mayor) could be one of the major factors that prevents Democrats from voting for him.
.@paynedc on @mikebloomberg 's 2020 run: "I also have the ridiculous hot take that Democrats like to vote for a Democrat and Michael Bloomberg is famously not a Democrat." pic.twitter.com/TQ3FHAG18j
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) November 24, 2019
