Democrats Are Freaking Out About Mike Bloomberg

“The notion that the 750 people who were not elected as delegates are going to come in after the country votes, and 18 months of campaigning and gigantic amounts of volunteer time—it’s really critical for our credibility that we have this first ballot,” Cohen told me, arguing that a contested convention would weaken the party’s ability to beat Trump.

If the Bloomberg plan is to take the nomination via any tactic but winning the most delegates and coming out ahead in the first round, “shame on them,” Cohen said. “It makes a mockery of it all.”

Sanders and Bloomberg each symbolize something much bigger than themselves. They’ve each promised to support the eventual Democratic nominee—Sanders insists that the prospect of another Trump win is more important than ideological differences between Democrats, and Bloomberg has pledged to keep his billion-dollar operation going whether he wins or not. But would Bloomberg really keep his fortune pumping to help elect a socialist, especially after losing at the convention? And would Sanders really back a billionaire moderate who got party insiders to throw him the nomination?

“There are going to be a lot of people who are going to be very upset if they feel like the election was stolen from them by a cabal of corporate types,” Jeff Weaver, Sanders’s top strategist and generally the most reliable reflection of the senator’s thinking, told me a few weeks ago.

Comments like this make me think of the day in Philadelphia in 2016 when Hillary Clinton was officially nominated and dozens of Sanders supporters staged a walkout. Some were holding Sanders signs. Some had put Sanders campaign stickers over their mouths, to show that they’d been silenced. That was after Sanders had given a speech urging his supporters to unify behind Clinton. But people who were there that afternoon told me they felt like they had to keep up the fight, even without the candidate. Enough Sanders supporters remained so disenchanted that they stayed home on Election Day, or voted for Jill Stein or Trump. Even some of Clinton’s most devoted supporters have admitted privately that they’d be uncomfortable with Bloomberg grabbing the nomination from Sanders. The risk of fracture within the party seems enormous.

Phil Levine, the former mayor of Miami Beach, told me after Bloomberg’s event in Wynwood that he wasn’t concerned about a blowup. The goal of beating Trump can create its own unity, he argued, and Democrats have to be realistic about the fact that Trump won in 2016. “What makes us think they want to elect a socialist?”

“Promising to spend trillions of dollars of taxpayer money just to get yourself elected is buying an election,” Tusk, the Bloomberg adviser, told me. “Using money you earned to run a campaign that does not need or take money from any outside interest is laudable.”

Of course, maybe Biden ends up in a stronger position, or Warren rebounds, or Buttigieg runs strong. Or maybe Andrew Yang or Tom Steyer rack up enough delegates to play kingmaker themselves.

For now, Democrats watching from the sidelines are worried. But, as one former staffer for a candidate no longer in the Democratic race texted me, the Republicans must be having a blast.

Edward-Isaac Dovere is a staff writer at The Atlantic.