NEW YORK — Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former three-term mayor of New York City, has opted against mounting a third-party White House bid that could have roiled this year’s extraordinarily unpredictable presidential campaign further.
Bloomberg, who has spent months mulling an independent campaign, made his decision official through an editorial posted by the Bloomberg View.
“There is a good chance that my candidacy could lead to the election of Donald Trump or Sen. Ted Cruz,” Bloomberg wrote. “That is not a risk I can take in good conscience.”
The former mayor, who had indicated he would have spent $1 billion of his own money on the run, had set a mid-March deadline for his advisers to assess the feasibility of mounting a run, thinking that waiting longer would imperil his ability to complete the petition process needed to get on the ballots in all 50 states.
The decision concludes Bloomberg’s third and likely final flirtation with a White House run.
The possibility had grown popular among New York’s business class and, the mayor’s aides had believed, could have resonated with moderates and independents across the nation dissatisfied with the polarization in Washington and the rise of the political parties’ fringes.
