Democratic presidential contender Mike Bloomberg claimed Tuesday he “didn’t realize” Sen. Elizabeth Warren was still in the primary race, going so far as to ask a reporter if she was still running.
Speaking to reporters while campaigning in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami, Fla., the billionaire ex-mayor made the admission after being asked if a third-place finish in Super Tuesday states would be good.
“If there’s only three candidates, you can’t do worse than that,” he told the reporter.
“Well, there is Elizabeth Warren also,” the reporter replied.
“I didn’t realize she’s still in. Is she?” he responded.
The reporter didn’t press Bloomberg further on whether he was kidding, instead changing the subject to how the former NYC mayor hopes to do in California.
Warren, like Bloomberg, only sees a path to the Democratic nomination through a contested party convention.
The Massachusetts progressive has been vocal in recent weeks that she still sees a path despite not having won any states yet and not hedging her bets on winning any on Super Tuesday.
Warren appears so confident about her standing — and the likelihood of a contested convention — that she refused to refer to her home state of Massachusetts as a “must-win” when speaking to a Washington Post reporter Saturday.
“In the road to the nomination, the Wisconsin primary is halftime, and the convention in Milwaukee is the final play,” Warren’s campaign manager, Roger Lau, wrote in a memo, referencing the 2020 Democratic National Convention scheduled for this summer in Milwaukee.
Bloomberg is also relying on a contested convention to secure his general election candidacy.
Speaking on Monday to campaign volunteers, the billionaire said he wasn’t feeling dissuaded about his Super Tuesday chances after moderate Democrats began coalescing behind former VP Joe Biden in an effort to unite the party.
“The most likely scenario for the Democratic Party is that nobody has a majority and then it goes to a convention where there’s horse-trading and everybody decides to compromise on — it doesn’t even have to be one of the two leading candidates. It could be somebody that had only a small number of delegates,” Bloomberg said Monday night during a Fox News town hall.
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