With less than three months to go before the Iowa caucus kicks off the 2020 race, the field may be getting some new competition. Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is said to be preparing to enter the race, which would make him the 18th Democratic candidate.
But some of the remaining contenders may think an expanding field of candidates is a move in the wrong direction. Cory Booker’s press secretary, Sabrina Singh, told Cheddar on Friday, “I don’t know that the campaign needs another Democrat in the race.”
But another Democrat it may have, and a very wealthy one. Bloomberg, worth about $52.4 billion, according to a Forbes estimate, could be a major threat to former Vice President Joe Biden.
Singh said, “We really need someone out there that can unite the country, that can build a multiracial coalition.” Some, including Singh, question if Bloomberg is the man for that job.
Bloomberg had toyed with the idea of a 2020 run earlier this year but seemed to bow out due to Biden’s strength. As Biden falters, Bloomberg may see a chance.
Singh said the Booker campaign is mainly focused more on running a successful campaign, whether or not another contender enters the mix.
”What Cory [Booker] brings to the stage is very different than what Bloomberg brings,” said Singh. Booker “is the only candidate in this race that still lives in a low-income community: Newark” she added.
“We’re not going to mold our message to Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren,” she said. “We’re going to keep running a race that we believe, that we are very confident in and see our way through Iowa and beyond.”
Federal health advisers voted overwhelmingly against an experimental treatment for Lou Gehrig’s disease at a Wednesday meeting prompted by years of patient efforts seeking access to the unproven therapy.
Lawmakers probing the cause of last month’s deadly Maui wildfire did not get many answers during Thursday's congressional hearing on the role the electrical grid played in the disaster.
President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that federal disaster assistance is available for Louisiana, which is working to slow a mass inflow of salt water creeping up the Mississippi River and threatening drinking water supplies in the southern part of the state.
A new law in California will raise the minimum wage for fast food workers to $20 per hour next year, an acknowledgment from the state's Democratic leaders that most of the often overlooked workforce are the primary earners for their low-income households.
From Sunday, workers at the main United States base in Antarctica will no longer be able to walk into a bar and order a beer, after the U.S. federal agency that oversees the research program decided to stop serving alcohol.
House Republicans launched a formal impeachment hearing Thursday against President Joe Biden, promising to “provide accountability” as they probe the family finances and business dealings of his son Hunter and make their case to the public, colleagues and a skeptical Senate.
The FBI and other government agencies should be required to get court approval before reviewing the communications of U.S. citizens collected through a secretive foreign surveillance program, a sharply divided privacy oversight board recommended on Thursday.
