The Bloomberg Is Off The Rose

As I mentioned this morning, former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg is officially not going to get into the race for the White House as a third party spoiler, and the NY Times received some of Bloomberg's research on the run.  It's interesting stuff indeed.

Bloomberg's advisers thought he had a real shot as the third party alternative in a Trump v Sanders matchup:

Amazing.  Bloomberg's team thought he would win the Upper Midwest with the exception of Minnesota, while utterly breaking Trump in the South, with Bloomberg somehow being competitive in both Texas and California and being in position to get to 270 win easily.

But the reality of a Clinton/Trump matchup apparently forced him to fold his cards completely.

The scenario here is that Bloomberg weakens both sides to the point where nobody gets to 270, and then the GOP-controlled House would decide the election for Trump.

Note the maps come from our old friend Doug Schoen, which means they are vastly overstating Bloomberg's chance of winning any state whatsoever.  The actual reality is that much like Perot's run two decades ago, Bloomberg wouldn't win a single state, but would split a vast number of states that would make for a different swing state group.  That chaos would almost certainly benefit Trump as well, allowing him to win states that he wouldn't have a shot at.

The upshot would be the same: Bloomberg would create a path for President Trump.  Luckily that's not something that he wants to be remembered for, so for now, we're being spared his ego.