Mike Bloomberg's campaign donates $18M to the DNC, fires staff who say they were promised jobs through November

Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who briefly (and expensively) ran for president this year, is donating $18 million to the Democratic National Committee instead of creating a super PAC to support the Democratic presidential nominee as he previously planned, NPR reported.

 

Bloomberg's donation is possible because of a loophole in campaign contribution limits. Since the money comes from his own campaign committee, there is no limit to how much he can donate. And since Bloomberg self-funded his entire campaign, he is essentially making an individual contribution of $18 million to the DNC.

Even a donation of that size is smaller than what some expected from him when he was planning to launch a super PAC. NPR reported that Bloomberg had hinted in the past that he might be contributing up to $1 billion to get a Democrat into the White House.

"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," a memo from Bloomberg's campaign to DNC Chairman Tom Perez read.

Broken promises: Bloomberg's campaign notably paid staffers higher-than-normal salaries and reportedly promised some of them they'd be on staff through the November election regardless of whether Bloomberg was still in the race or not. That is turning out to be too good to be true, however. From Business Insider:

When he exited the race March 4, former Mayor Mike Bloomberg of New York City promised to pay his staff through the end of the month and to keep offices in some key battleground states open through the race to support the Democratic Party.

But Business Insider talked to two former Bloomberg campaign staffers — who asked to remain anonymous because they signed nondisclosure agreements — who said they were shocked to be let go last week.

The Bloomberg campaign is closing offices in all but six battleground states. The offices that are remaining open are being transferred to the state parties. Laid-off staffers are now concerned about losing income and health insurance in the midst of a pandemic and an economic shutdown.

"I literally quit my previous job to be able to work on Mike's campaign, I upheld all of the promises I made to the campaign, I worked my ass off for the campaign, all to feel deceived and left without a job that I was promised," a former Virginia staffer told Business Insider.

After failing to be competitive on Super Tuesday, Bloomberg dropped out of the Democratic presidential primary and endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden.