Bloomberg Transfers $18 Million to DNC, Dems In Battleground States

WASHINGTON – Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has abandoned plans to form a new super PAC dedicated to defeating President Donald Trump and is instead donating $18 million to the Democratic National Committee to achieve the same ends.

In addition, the billionaire and former presidential candidate is transferring his offices in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to the state Democratic parties in those states.

A list of “hundreds” of staff members will be given to the DNC with the expectation and hope they will be hired, a former Bloomberg campaign official said.

Bloomberg announced his intentions last week on the same day that the Federal Elections Commission reported he spent more than $900 million on his failed presidential bid.

“While we considered creating our own independent entity to support the nominee and hold the president accountable, this race is too important to have many competing groups with good intentions but that are not coordinated and united in strategy and execution,” Bloomberg’s campaign said in a written statement. “We therefore believe the best thing we can all do over the next eight months is to help the group that matters most in this fight: the Democratic National Committee.”

Bloomberg staffers in the six battleground states where office transfers are taking place have been told they will be paid by the Bloomberg campaign through the first week of April with full health benefits through the end of April.

But some former Bloomberg staffers still feel aggrieved. Four of them have sued the former candidate, saying they were promised employment and health care through the November election.

“Thousands of people relied on that promise. They moved to other cities. They gave up school, jobs, and job opportunities. They uprooted their lives,” attorneys for three of the plaintiffs wrote in one of two class-action lawsuits filed in federal court in New York. “But the promise was false.”

After the former New York mayor dropped out of the race, the lawsuit argues, his campaign “unceremoniously dumped” the campaign staffers, leaving them without jobs, income or health insurance during the COVID-19 pandemic and as the nation teeters on recession.

One of the field organizers also sued for not being paid overtime.

The Bloomberg campaign responded by saying its staffers were generously compensated, and that all former campaign workers would have health care coverage through the end of April.

“This campaign paid its staff wages and benefits that were much more generous than any other campaign this year,” the campaign said. “Staff worked 39 days on average, but they were also given several weeks of severance and health care through March, something no other campaign did this year.”

Bloomberg’s donation to the DNC will support the party’s “Battleground Build-Up 2020” program and continue organizing in key states, funding hundreds of organizers, according to a Democratic official.

“This will help us invest in more organizers across the country to elect the next president and help Democrats win up and down the ballot,” Perez said in a statement.