A week before the Iowa caucuses on February 3, the first stage of the Democratic nomination contest for the November 3 presidential election, The world launches its campaign logbook. A daily update, first of all five days a week until September, with campaign facts, political advertisements, polls, maps and figures that allow us to follow and experience the most important electoral competition in the world.
The thrill remains modest. A little more than two months after his very late declaration of candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination, the billionaire Michael Bloomberg collects for the moment only modest intentions of vote, compared to 240 million dollars (218 million euros) already spent on campaign ads.
Before him, a first billionaire had considered running for election against Donald Trump, Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks cafes. He finally gave up, but a second billionaire, Tom Steyer, philanthropist engaged in the fight against global warming, entered the race in July. He was joined on November 21 by the founder of the news agency Bloomberg, 77, the wealthiest of all (his fortune is estimated at around $ 60 billion). The latter justified his candidacy by the weakness of the moderate current, embodied by former vice-president Joe Biden, aged like him 77 years old.
At the start of his business, Michael Bloomberg was credited with only 2.5% of voting intentions according to the average of polls calculated by the RealClearPolitics site. Today it has 7.8%. these are surveys at the national level which have only an indicative value since the elections are decided state by state. This result, confirmed by calculations from the FiveThirtyEight site, places the billionaire fourth, far behind the favorites of former vice president Joe Biden, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, and Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren. He was ahead of the youngest in the race, Pete Buttigieg, and the Minnesota senator, Amy Klobuchar.
Michael Bloomberg has embarked on an unprecedented gamble. He decided to skip the first states to vote in February, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina to focus on the fourteen states of Super Tuesday on March 3. On this occasion, a quarter of the delegates responsible for formalizing at the national convention of Milwaukee (Wisconsin), in July, the name of the candidate who will face Donald Trump, will be designated. He can then make a first assessment of his strategy.
