Bruised and battered, can Bloomberg still buy the Democratic nomination?

Analysis: His vast wealth has put him into the running, but the former New York mayor will need more than slick adverts to take the Democratic nomination, writes Phil Thomas

Mike Bloomberg speaks during Wednesday’s Democratic presidential primary debate in Las Vegas (AP)

Can you buy your way to the Democratic nomination? And then to the presidency? That’s the riddle the billionaire former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg has been posing to the voters of the United States since announcing his candidacy in September.

Despite his late entry to the race, his lavish spending has catapulted him ahead in the polls – still behind Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden in a Real Clear Politics average, but, at 16 per cent, ahead of senators Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar.

His attack ads against Donald Trump have been slick. His business record is impressive. With years at city hall, he has solid experience as a political chief executive.

But, on the evidence of his first public outing at the Democratic debate in Nevada, the path to the White House will need a lot more than deep pockets.

Bloomberg was expected to get a rough ride – not least because Sanders and Warren have made the evils of big money in politics such an integral part of their pitches. But the ferocity of the attacks from the start, particularly from Warren, was startling, and seemed to leave the former mayor reeling.

The Massachusetts senator declared: “I’d like to talk about who we are running against. A billionaire who calls women ‘fat broads’ and ‘horse-faced lesbians’. And no I am not talking about Donald Trump. I am talking about Mayor Bloomberg.

“Look, I’ll support whoever the Democratic nominee is, but understand this: Democrats take a huge risk if we just substitute one arrogant billionaire for another.”

Bloomberg’s rivals then took turns hitting him over non-disclosure agreements agreed with former female employees, as well as his controversial stop-and-frisk policy during his Big Apple tenure, which predominantly targeted people of colour.

Of course, any political hopeful is going to have to soak up a lot of pressure – the Republican debates in 2016 and the Democratic ones in 2008 were bloody affairs.

But perhaps the most wounding part for Bloomberg was the way he struggled to handle the attack. Someone like Trump seems to come alive under the blows of his enemies. Bloomberg looked impatient and irritable, at one point rolling his eyes as if wondering why he had to be there. On the morning shows the day after the debate, commentators speculated on how many years it must have been since he had been spoken to in such a manner.

As Bloomberg staggered, Warren soared – largely at his expense. Her campaign announced the following morning that they had received $3m off the back of her performance, as some pundits hailed her as the “comeback kid”.

He did land a punch or two, particularly against Sanders (asking how America’s best-known socialist could be a millionaire and own three houses), and handled questions about his riches surprisingly well (“I’ve been very lucky … I’m giving a lot of it away to make this a better country”).

But the overall reaction does not bode well for the fight ahead.

Can he turn things round? Many doubt it. Andrew Yang, who dropped out of the Democratic race after an eye-catching run, tweeted: “The next debate is in South Carolina on Tuesday. That’s very soon. I don’t think that’s enough time for Bloomberg to adopt a fundamentally different approach.”

The former mayor is not contesting this weekend’s caucuses in Nevada, or the South Carolina primary at the end of February, but thereafter will be on the ballot paper.

According to the Los Angeles Times, he has spent $124m (£104m) on campaign ads in the Super Tuesday states – the 14 states, led by California and Texas, which vote on March 3 and could be make or break for more than one candidate.

His spending is 10 times more than his rivals. Bernie Sanders is closest on just under $10m.

Bloomberg’s pitch to Americans who want to see the back of the current president is tantalising – that he can hit Trump in his Achilles heel: the economy. The health of America’s finances could be the key to giving Trump a second term if even people who dislike him can bring themselves to hold their noses at the ballot box for the sake of their family finances and security.

More than his rivals, Bloomberg could tell Americans: you like what an oft-failed businessman who inherited his money has managed to achieve? Just think of what a genuine multibillionaire with a track record of success could do for the economy.

That may explain why Trump has spent so much time disparaging and demeaning “Mini-Mike”. The president was said to be delighted with the way the Nevada debate unfolded. Speaking at a rally in neighbouring Arizona, he told the crowd that he’d heard Bloomberg was getting a “pounding”. He certainly was.

So can you buy your way to the White House? It may be possible but it will take a lot more than Mike Bloomberg was able to show in Las Vegas. If he really has the stomach for the fight and can learn from the pummelling he underwent then he may still be in the race.

Whether you should be able to buy your way to the White House is another matter, of course – Warren and Sanders, and millions of American voters, will have plenty to say about that.