Bloomberg Files Presidential Paperwork With FEC: Campaign Update

(Bloomberg) -- Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg filed paperwork Thursday to create a presidential campaign committee as he considers a possible bid for the Democratic nomination. He has not announced a decision to run.

Under federal election law, people who have taken formal steps to run for office have 15 days to register a committee with the Federal Election Commission, including seeking ballot access. Bloomberg filed Nov. 8 to appear as a candidate in Alabama’s Democratic presidential primary and has also filed to run in party primaries in Arkansas and Texas.

A Bloomberg aide said the FEC filing is another step toward running but not an announcement or final decision.

The former mayor is considering a run for president in 2020, with an adviser saying Bloomberg is concerned that the current crop of Democratic contenders would not be able to defeat President Donald Trump.

Besides filing to appear on the ballot in some states, Bloomberg’s team has announced plans to spend $100 million on anti-Trump digital ads in key states, as well as an estimated $15 million to $20 million to register 500,000 voters in five battleground states won by Trump.

Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.

Sanders Calls for Tuition-Free Black Colleges (12:43 p.m.)

Bernie Sanders on Thursday released a plan to make all historically black colleges and universities, as well as tribal colleges, tuition free.

Sanders’ College for All plan, which he presented in a speech at Morehouse College in Atlanta, aims to address low and decreased enrollment by allocating $1.3 billion annually to private, nonprofit HBCUs and minority-serving institutions. The funding would support 200 schools, according to the campaign. Furthermore, Sanders calls for spending $5 billion on infrastructure grants and canceling $1.6 billion in HBCU debt from the Capital Financing Program. He also promises to spend $10 billion on building up medical, dental and teacher training graduate programs at HBCUs.

States and tribes participating in the program would be required to cover the full cost for low-income students to obtain a degree. For students who have already graduated, Sanders calls for eliminating $1.6 trillion in outstanding debt.

Other Democratic candidates, including Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren, have also introduced proposals to help HBCUs, as they compete for African-American voters, who have a key role in the party’s nomination process. -- Emma Kinery

Warren Ad Condemns Ambassadorships for Donors (11:43 a.m.)

Elizabeth Warren is launching a new ad highlighting her pledge to give ambassadorships to qualified nominees rather than big campaign donors.

The spot says Gordon Sondland, a GOP contributor who gave $1 million to President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee, is emblematic of Washington corruption. Sondland is a key witness in the House impeachment proceedings and testified Wednesday that holding up military aid to Ukraine was part of a quid pro quo.

Warren’s ad features shots of Sondland’s appearance before the House Intelligence Committee while she explains in a voice-over that he’s at the center of Trump’s “crimes and chaos.” She promises to stop a practice that presidents of both parties have engaged in. She also raised the issue of rewarding big donors with plum embassy postings during the Democrat’s presidential debate on Wednesday.

“I’ll never give ambassadorships to unqualified donors just because they wrote me fat checks,” she said in the ad, which is running on digital platforms. -- Bill Allison

Biden Leads by 10 Points in New York State Poll (5:30 a.m.)

Joe Biden is leading by 10 percentage points among New York Democrats in a Siena Research Institute poll, reclaiming his spot as the front-runner after tying with Senator Elizabeth Warren last month.

Biden received 24% of the vote in the poll released Thursday, followed by Warren with 14% and Senator Bernie Sanders with 13%. No other candidate polled in the double digits: Pete Buttigieg had 5%, and Senator Kamala Harris 3%.

In October, Biden and Warren were tied each with 21%, followed by Sanders with 16% and Buttigieg and Harris each with 4%.

“Biden leads with men and women and he leads upstate and downstate,” said Steven Greenberg, pollster for Siena College. “Among white Democrats, Biden only edges Warren by 2 points. He has a commanding 24-point lead over Sanders among black Democrats. Sanders and Biden lead with Latino Democrats.”

Biden was also selected as the most electable candidate with 35% of New York Democrats saying he had the best chance to win the 2020 election, followed by Warren with 12% and Sanders with 11%.

The poll was conducted Nov. 12-18 and has a margin of error of 5.7 percentage points. -- Emma Kinery

COMING UP

The National Action Network, the civil rights group headed by the Reverend Al Sharpton, hosted five presidential candidates on Thursday morning for a discussion of racial equality and civil rights. Candidates scheduled to appear are Booker, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Tom Steyer and Andrew Yang.

After the Democratic debate in Atlanta on Wednesday night, Warren is to deliver a speech on Thursday at Clark Atlanta University, one of the oldest historically black colleges. Representative Ayanna Pressley, a Massachusetts Democrat who was first elected last fall, will join her.

--With assistance from Emma Kinery and Bill Allison.

To contact the reporters on this story: Mark Niquette in Columbus at mniquette@bloomberg.net;Bill Allison in Washington DC at ballison14@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Steve Geimann, Sara Forden

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