Sanders won’t take money from Bloomberg if he becomes nominee

Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) presidential campaign said this week that he would not accept money from fellow Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg if the senator becomes the party’s presidential nominee. 

“It’s a hard no,” Jeff Weaver, a senior advisor for Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign, said of the idea in an interview with NBC News on Tuesday night after the primary debate in Charleston, S.C. “Bernie has said he’s going to fund his presidential campaign with small-dollar contributions, and I think we can do that.”

“I think we can raise over a billion dollars in small-dollar contributions,” he added.

Last month, Bloomberg’s campaign said the billionaire planned to provide financial backing to whichever candidate wins the Democratic primary race.

“Mike Bloomberg is either going to be the nominee or the most important person supporting the Democratic nominee for president,” Kevin Sheekey, his campaign manager, said then. “He is dedicated to getting Trump out of the White House.” 

However, Howard Wolfson, who serves as a senior adviser to the former New York City mayor, told NBC News this week that if Sanders doesn’t want the billionaire’s help in a general election against President Trump, he won’t get it.

“Bernie said he didn’t want [Bloomberg’s] money, so we’re not going to. I don’t think it would be prudent to spend on behalf of somebody who didn’t want it,” Wolfson told the news network. 

“I think everyone else has said they want the help, including Elizabeth Warren,” he continued. “If Elizabeth Warren is the nominee, we will do everything we can to help her. Sanders is the one candidate who said he didn’t want the help.”

Warren’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill.

Bloomberg, who has an estimated net worth of $61 billion, has been self-funding his campaign since he officially launched his presidential bid in November. According to NPR, he has spent more than $400 million just on advertising in the period since.

Despite his late entrance into the Democratic primary race, the former mayor has been gaining momentum in some recent polls that have him trailing close behind Sanders, who is the Democratic front-runner, and other top-tier candidates in upcoming primary contests.