Bernie Sanders: I can beat Michael Bloomberg and Donald Trump
The New York Times reported on Saturday that Bloomberg may enter the race if Trump and Sanders become the nominees for the Republican and Democratic parties respectively.
In an interview on "Meet The Press" on Sunday, the Democratic presidential candidate said that he doubted that voters would be interested in electing a billionaire.
"If Donald Trump wins and Mr. Bloomberg gets in, you're going to have two multi-billionaires running for president of the United States against me. And I think the American people do not want to see our nation move toward an oligarchy where billionaires control the political process," Sanderes said. "I think we'll win that election."
With Sanders rivaling former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in key early states, and Trump maintaining his wide lead over the field of Republican opponents, sources close to Bloomberg say that the former mayor is preparing for a potential centrist bid that would provide an alternative to Trump's nativist conservatism and Sanders' anti-Wall Street populism.
There hasn't been any significant polling to support whether Sanders could beat both Bloomberg and Trump, though critics have noted that Bloomberg's potential run as a pragmatic technocrat would likely favor the Republican candidate. If no single candidate receives a majority of electoral votes, the president is chosen by the House of Representatives, which is currently controlled by Republicans.
For her part, Clinton said that she doesn't expect a scenario like that to play out.
"The way I read with he said is if I didn't get the nomination, he might consider it," Clinton told "Meet The Press" moderator Chuck Todd on Sunday. "Well, I'm going to relieve him of that and get the nomination so he doesn't have to."