The democratic candidate is now throwing his support behind Joe Biden.
Despite sinking an impressive amount of money into his campaign, late democratic entry Michael Bloomberg has not been seeing returns on voter numbers. After a disappointing Super Tuesday vote that landed him only 12 delegates, Bloomberg has decided to throw in the towel.
“Three months ago, I entered the race for President to defeat Donald Trump,” Bloomberg said in a statement on Wednesday morning. “Today, I am leaving the race for the same reason: to defeat Donald Trump–because it is clear to me that staying in would make achieving that goal more difficult.”
Unlike his fellow democratic candidates, Bloomberg entered the game relatively late, officially launching his campaign near the end of November last year. To compensate for the campaigning he had already missed out on, Bloomberg launched a massive movement on commercial television and social media. With a combination of commercials, Facebook ads, and Instagram accounts, Bloomberg’s self-funded campaign ran up a bill of approximately $528 million, which now holds the record for the most money spent on a self-funded campaign in American political history.
After announcing his retirement from the race, Bloomberg went on to endorse his fellow democratic candidate, and one of the front runners for the nomination, Joe Biden. Biden’s numbers saw a dramatic rise after Super Tuesday as he claimed victory in nine out of the fifteen contested states. Other former candidates including Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar have also thrown their support behind Biden, and with Bloomberg added to that roster, he now has an impressive trifecta in his corner.
The only remaining candidates in the democratic primary are Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren.