Mike Bloomberg, who poured hundreds of millions of his own personal fortune into his presidential campaign, is ending that bid after two embarrassing Democratic debate performances and a pitiful Super Tuesday.
After a $500-million effort that saw him only win America Samoa’s five delegates on Super Tuesday, Bloomberg ended his campaign Wednesday morning.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is also reportedly meeting with her staff to reassess her campaign. On Wednesday night, the Washington Post reported representatives from both the Warren and Bernie Sanders campaign were meeting to discuss ways of uniting their progressive campaigns, with the expectation Warren would soon leave the race.
President Donald Trump, who has famously ridiculed Bloomberg on Twitter, took another shot at the former New York City mayor.
Trump also criticized the winless Warren for remaining in the race.
Bloomberg becomes the latest in a series of unsuccessful Democratic White House hopefuls to throw their support behind former Vice President Joe Biden, who won nine of 14 states on Super Tuesday.
Biden is a battle with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders to win the party’s presidential nomination. Former Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and billionaire Tom Steyer all have ended their presidential bids within the last week and endorsed Biden.
Bloomberg poured hundreds of millions of dollars of his own fortune into his White House bid with virtually nothing to show for his investment.
"In just three months, we've gone from being at 1 percent in the polls to being a contender for the Democratic nomination for President," Bloomberg told a crowd of supporters in Florida on Tuesday evening.
But later, news organizations began reporting that Bloomberg would “reassess” his campaign on Wednesday.
On Super Tuesday, Bloomberg did win delegates in Utah, Texas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Colorado, and Arkansas, but there were no victories except American Samoa.
Bloomberg's campaign - fueled by millions in pervasive television advertisements - pushed him into the top tier of Democratic candidates by mid February. But Bloomberg's weak performance at a pair of Democratic debates — in which he was attacked repeatedly by Warren — caused his poll numbers to wane, as Biden suddenly grabbed on to major momentum in the Democratic race.
In Georgia, Bloomberg did secure the support of DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond and U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath (D-6).
Biden and Sanders, lifelong politicians with starkly different visions for America’s future, were locked in a delegate fight a day after 14 states and one U.S. territory held a series of high-stakes elections that marked the most significant day of voting in the party’s presidential primary.
It could take weeks — or months — for Democrats to pick one of them to take on President Donald Trump in the November general election. But the new contours of the fight between Biden and Sanders crystallized as the former vice president and the three-term Vermont senator spoke to each other from dueling victory speeches delivered from opposite ends of the country Tuesday night.
The Sanders campaign announced Wednesday it would begin airing three new campaign ads in Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and Washington, states that hold primaries March 10 and March 17.
One of the new ads features archived footage of former President Barack Obama praising Sanders. It's a not-so-subtle attempt by the Vermont senator to undercut Biden's frequently spotlighting his closeness to Obama.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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