This archive report was first published on 10 November 2019.
On November 9, 2019, Bernie Sanders delivered a forceful rebuke of Michael Bloomberg's potential presidential bid, warning the former New York mayor that he would not be able to 'buy this election' and criticizing his plan to skip campaigning in early states.
Speaking at a rally in Coralville, Iowa, Sanders, the senator from Vermont, repeatedly addressed Bloomberg by name, almost daring him to enter a Democratic primary race that had already been in progress for months.
'Our campaign is going to end the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality which exists in America today,' Sanders said. 'So tonight we say to Michael Bloomberg and other billionaires: Sorry, you ain't going to buy this election.'
Sanders also derided Bloomberg's intended strategy of bypassing key early voting states, saying, 'You're not going to get elected president by avoiding Iowa, by avoiding New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. You're not going to buy this election by spending hundreds of millions of dollars on media in California. Those days are gone.'
