Bloomberg 2020
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 4, 2020

STATEMENT FROM MIKE BLOOMBERG

This morning, Mike Bloomberg released the following statement: 

“Three months ago, I entered the race for President to defeat Donald Trump. 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.

“I’m a believer in using data to inform decisions. After yesterday’s results, the delegate math has become virtually impossible – and a viable path to the nomination no longer exists. But I remain clear-eyed about my overriding objective: victory in November. Not for me, but for our country. And so while I will not be the nominee, I will not walk away from the most important political fight of my life. 

“I’ve always believed that defeating Donald Trump starts with uniting behind the candidate with the best shot to do it. After yesterday’s vote, it is clear that candidate is my friend and a great American, Joe Biden.
 
“I’ve known Joe for a very long time. I know his decency, his honesty, and his commitment to the issues that are so important to our country – including gun safety, health care, climate change, and good jobs.
 
“I’ve had the chance to work with Joe on those issues over the years, and Joe has fought for working people his whole life. Today I am glad to endorse him – and I will work to make him the next President of the United States.

“I am immensely proud of the campaign we ran, the issues we raised, and the sweeping and achievable plans we proposed – including our Greenwood Initiative to right historic wrongs, fight racial inequality, and make the promise of equal opportunity real for the Black communities that have endured centuries of exploitation and discrimination. That work is fundamental to the future of our country – and to the more perfect union that each generation is called to build.

“I am deeply grateful to all the Americans who voted for me – and to our incredibly dedicated staff and volunteers all around the country, who knocked on more than two million doors and held 12 million voter conversations in an incredibly short amount of time. No one outworked our team, and I couldn’t be prouder of everyone who was part of it. And I will be forever grateful to all the mayors, local and state legislators, Members of Congress, and many others who believed in me, endorsed my candidacy, and worked hard to unite voters around our vision. Your support and trust sustained me, and I look forward to working with you in the months and years ahead. 

“We made our campaign slogan a clear, simple promise: Mike will get it done. And I intend to keep working on the “it.” I will continue to work for sensible, common sense policy solutions that can get done. That includes passing gun safety laws that save lives. Fighting climate change. Improving health care. Making college more accessible and affordable. Creating economic opportunity for all. And helping mayors and local leaders across the country who are doing so much important work on all of these issues. 

“The past few months have been some of the most inspiring of my life, and I want to thank the tens of thousands of Americans, from Maine to California, whom I was privileged to meet – and who every day, with their voices and their ideas, made this campaign such a powerful experience. And I am intent on making it a lasting experience: I want my supporters to stay engaged, stay active and stay committed to our issues. I will be right there with you. And together, we will get it done.”

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Mike Bloomberg
Remarks Thanking Staff and Supporters
Sheraton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan
March 4, 2020

Well hello Bloomberg 2020. You know, I decided we had [have] the slogan wrong. It should be Mike likes you. Thank you. Thank you everyone.

Not sure what to say other than thank you to everybody here who's tried to make a difference. And Mayor Nutter, Mike, you really have been amazing. Where are you hiding? Hiding in plain sight. These past few months have been some of the most inspiring certainly in my life and I hope in yours. In just 100 days I have been to 73 cities in 27 states all across the country,

We've gone from Portand, Maine all the way to Compton, California, from Detroit, Michigan down to Jackson, Mississippi, and every place I went I listened to Americans of every age and every race and every ethnicity and every religion, and every identity and orientation. And I heard about their hopes and their dreams and their fears and their struggles. And those conversations just affirmed my faith in the work that our team was doing to defeat Donald Trump and bring our, and bring our country back together and get things done for the American people.

Now today I want to say how grateful I am to everyone who has been part of our team. And I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your support, your work and your votes. And I'm just telling you the American public should be saying thank you to you as well. You really made history; you really did. Yes that's true. No campaign has ever accomplished as much as you did in such a short period of time. If you go back, we started at 1% in the polls. But yesterday thanks to you,nearly two million Americans cast their votes for our campaign.

This really is the best, most creative, most hard working campaign team ever assembled. And I have to say there is no doubt in my mind we would we would have beaten Donald Trump in November.

And you know who else knows that? Donald Trump.

He's been scared stiff of us and for good reason. Because every time he hit us, we hit back twice as hard. And nnlike his jabs our punches packed the truth.

Now look, today I am clear eyed about our overriding objective, and that is victory in November. Not, not victory for me or our campaign, but victory for our country. If you remember I entered the race for president to defeat Donald Trump. And today I am leaving the race for the same reason— to defeat Donald Trump because staying in would make it more difficult to achieve that goal.

I've always believed that data should inform our decisions. That's the way I ran my business and foundation and it's the way we ran City Hall. In fact, our campaign slogan was In God We Trust, everyone else, bring data. Well after yesterday's results, the delegate math had become virtually impossible, and a viable path to the nomination just no longer existed. And I will not be our party's nominee. But I will not walk away from the most important political fight of my life and I hope you won't walk away either.

I've always believed, I've always believed that defeating Donald Trump starts with uniting behind the candidate with the best shot to do it. And after yesterday's vote it is clear that candidate is my friend and a great American, Joe Biden.

I've known Joe for a very long time. I know his decency, his honesty, his commitment to the issues that are so important to our country, including gun safety, health care, climate change, and good jobs, and I've had a chance to work with Joe on those issues over the years, especially when he was vice president. He fought for working people his whole life. And I'm glad to say I endorse Joe Biden, and I hope you will join me in working to make him the next president of the United States of America.

It is an enormous understatement to say that I'm immensely proud of the campaign that we ran and the issues we raised and the sweeping achievable plans we proposed, and that includes our Greenwood initiative to right historic wrong, to fight racial inequality and make the promise of equal opportunity real for the black communities that have endured centuries of exploitation and discrimination. That work I've always thought is fundamental to the future of our country and to the more perfect union and each generation is called to build.

This afternoon, I want you to all know that I am grateful to everyone who supported us. To everyone at our campaign headquarters here in New York, the work that you did every day, late at nights, early mornings and weekends and holidays was really just amazing. And to our credible staff and volunteers in the states, you knocked on more than 2 million doors and had more than 12 million conversations with voters, and to the traveling— yes you deserve a round of applause.

And to the traveling team, from advance to the press, you make great events look easy, you made them look flawless exciting and energizing. You were the road warriors.

Now, no one outworked all of you and that's for sure. I'm very proud and you should be too, because you devoted your days and nights doing the most important job in America, beating Donald Trump and working to reclaim our values and rebuild our country.

So before I close I just wanted to thank our campaigns amazing co-chairs who are among America's most respected and effective leaders:

Steve Benjamin.
Greg Fischer.
Michael Tubbs.
Muriel Bowser.
Stephanie Murphy.
Manny Diaz
Gina Raimondo
Bobby Rush.
Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.
Antonio Villaraigosa.
And of course the incomparable Michael Nutter.

And I want to thank all the mayors and local leaders and member of Congress and everyone else who believed in us, who endorsed our candidacy and who worked hard to unite voters around your vision. This morning I called about 75 of them just to say thank you. And it was maybe the 75 best compensations I've ever had. They really believed, and they were as proud today that they'd endorsed us as they were the day before, when we were before the voters.

Your support and your trust meant the world to me and to them and I look forward to working with all of you in the months and years ahead.

You know I've been doing this for a long time and every day gets better. And I can tell you today, sorry we didn't win, but it's still the best day of my life and tomorrow's gonna be better. And I want you to know that.

[CHANTS: We like Mike]

Well, I'm glad you do, and I hope Diana does.

I also want to thank a few people who did a spectacular job pulling this whole team together and managing the campaign, and always giving me honest advice, even when I didn't want it. Patty Harris, Kevin Sheekey and Howard Wolfson.

Now our campaign offered a clear, simple promise, Mike will get it done. And today I can promise you, I'm going to keep working on it, and I hope you will too. And I can tell you my daughters and Diana and all of my friends are committed to doing the same thing because as we all know, it means passing common sense gun safety laws that save lives. It means protecting our communities and climate change. It means improving health and health care for all Americans. It means making sure that every child can attend a great public school no matter what zip code they live in. It means fighting against discrimination and inequality wherever they exist. And it means protecting a woman's right to choose. That's it [inaud.].

Finally, let me just say this. I have never believed in doing anything halfway. When I believe in something, I work like crazy and fight like hell to achieve it. I knew what this race would be about, all about. I knew we didn't have much of a chance, but we did it anyways. And I'm just amazed at how many people have stood with me shoulder to shoulder, working and fighting every step of the way. I know you didn't do it for me. You did it for our country, for America.

And you do it because you love America as much as I do. And that's all I could ever ask for.

And being part of this campaign is more than a young boy who memorized the "Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" ever dreamed of. Today I believe that our great nation still sees that light in the Old North Church tower, the light of freedom, the light of liberty, the light of equality and the light of opportunity.

It is the same light that shines from the torch of the Statue of Liberty, and inspires the world with our values and our ideals. No wall can block out that light. No lie, no lie can deny that light, and we will not allow any president to dim that light.

Over these past three months, I've seen that light shining in the faces of millions of Americans, in every person who was part of our campaign, and in everyone from every political party who believes that we must begin bringing our country back together and putting the United back in the United States of America.

And so today, our campaign, our campaign today for the presidency ends, but our campaign for a better America, a stronger America, a more just America, a more equal America, and a more united America continues, and together we will get it done. Thank you.