Michael Bloomberg

After Split Results, Democrats Brace for a Long Primary. Just What Bloomberg Wants

An unprecedented seven Democratic candidates still have a credible reason to stay in the race

Kerem Yucel/AFP

Muddled results in the first two contests of the 2020 primary race have quashed hopes for a quick consolidation around a challenger to take on President Donald Trump — and Democrats are now strapping in for a drawn-out delegate hunt that could end in the first contested convention in decades, NBC News reported.

Instead of clarifying the race, Iowa and New Hampshire left an unprecedented seven candidates with a credible reason to stay in and succeeded in winnowing only minor players such as former Rep. John Delaney of Maryland and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.

Mark Longabaugh, a longtime Democratic strategist who helped run the 2016 campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg's team could not have asked for a better result from Iowa and New Hampshire than a messy field with Sanders as a weak front-runner.

"This played out in exactly the way in which Bloomberg would have wanted it," Longabaugh said. "In a realistic way, this may already have become a Bernie-Bloomberg race."

Read the full story on NBCNews.com

Contact Us