The 2020 presidential campaign of Michael Bloomberg, a businessman and former mayor of New York City, began when he filed a statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission for the office of President of the United States as a member of the Democratic Party on November 21, 2019.

[9] Prior to launching his campaign, Michael Bloomberg had been vocal in encouraging the Democratic Party to field a candidate with the best chance of defeating incumbent President Donald Trump.

[10] His campaign heavily relied on advertising, including the use of nationally aired television ads, social media influencers, and billboards in high-visibility locations.

Bloomberg dropped out of the race on March 4, 2020, after winning only the territory of American Samoa on Super Tuesday, while missing the 15% threshold for proportional delegates in several states.

[11] His lack of success among voters was attributed to poor debate performances, his former approval of stop-and-frisk in New York City, and allegations of a sexist working environment at his company, Bloomberg LP.

[25] He did not attend his company's second annual New Economy Forum in Beijing on November 20, a sign that his developing presidential campaign was now "dead serious".

[27] He missed the deadline to file in New Hampshire, thus reinforcing his planned strategy to focus on the Super Tuesday states on March 3,[28] Another sign of his presidential run came when the University of Minnesota cancelled Bloomberg's scheduled lecture at the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs on December 5, 2019, saying that it could be unlawful and against university policy to host him for such a lecture if he is a candidate.

[29] Bloomberg's "Everytown for Gun Safety" political bloc had previously contributed large sums of money to many Democrats running in the 2018 Minnesota statewide and legislative elections.

[29] Headquartered at facilities provided by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the campaign's staff at pre-launch included senior advisors Howard Wolfson, communications adviser Jason Schecter, advertising creator Bill Knapp, pollster Doug Schoen, along with sometimes Bloomberg Philanthropies CEO Patti Harris and political consultants Brynne Craig, Mitch Stewart, and Dan Wagner;[30][31] and, at launch, Kevin Sheekey (communications, government relations & marketing head for Bloomberg LP) was campaign manager.

[32] On November 21, 2019, Bloomberg filed a statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission to declare himself as a Democratic candidate for president,[8] though he said this was not a formal announcement, but a step towards making one if he decides to run.

[51] Despite its promise not to investigate Bloomberg's presidential rivals, the news agency published a blistering report[52] on the Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren campaigns and spending on Amazon office supplies ($233,348.51 and $151,240.90 respectively, in nine months).

[54] Following the Iowa caucuses, after a delay in reporting the results produced a chaotic and uncertain outcome, he decided to double his television advertising in all the markets where he was already spending and to increase his campaign staff to 2,000 people.

[57] By December 31, 2019 – five weeks after declaring his candidacy – he had spent or committed $200 million on advertising, producing "an onslaught of campaign commercials with no precedent in Democratic politics".

[40] By January 2020, Bloomberg spent an estimated $15 million on pay-per-click Google ads promoting his campaign on search results for terms including "impeachment", "climate change", and "gun safety".

[63] In February 2020, the campaign hired 500 "deputy digital organizers", who are paid $2,500 per month to promote Bloomberg on their personal social media accounts and in text messages to their contact lists.

[67][68] In the March 3, 2020 "Super Tuesday" primaries, Bloomberg finished in third or fourth place in most of the 14 states involved, picking up a total of 61 delegates out of the more than 1,000 that were available.

[71] In 2020, Buzzfeed News unearthed video footage from 2019 of Bloomberg at a Bermuda Business Development Agency gathering, where he questioned the effectiveness of Democratic politicians campaigning on transgender rights, saying: "If your conversation during a presidential election is about some guy wearing a dress.

[79][80] The report found that sections of the campaign's fact sheets for its plans on maternal care, LGBTQ equality, mental health, infrastructure, economy and tax policy contained exact passages – ranging from individual sentences to full paragraphs – pulled from sources including CNN, CBS, Time, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the American Medical Association, Everytown for Gun Safety, and Building America's Future Educational Fund, the latter two of which Bloomberg co-founded or financed.

"[85] Bloomberg's approval of stop-and-frisk policies in New York City during his mayoralty has received widespread condemnation from the public and police alike.

"[87][88][89] Bloomberg subsequently claimed that "I inherited the police practice of stop-and-frisk, and as part of our effort to stop gun violence, it was over-used.

This claim has been disputed by many in the media, who point to Bloomberg's past statements and actions as Mayor as evidence that he supported, and expanded, the practice.

"[98] Bloomberg has received criticism during the February debate for disallowing women who had settled suits against his company to publicly air their grievances.

A Twitter spokesperson told TIME that it has "taken enforcement action on a group of accounts for violating our rules against platform manipulation and spam".

[104] On February 20, 2020, Bloomberg's official Twitter account shared a manipulated video of the previous night's Democratic debate in Las Vegas.

[107][108] After declaring, he failed to meet the requirements to participate in the December 2019 and January 2020 debates, as the DNC required participating candidates to demonstrate at least 4-percent support in at least four separate national polls approved by the DNC (or 6 percent in two early state polls), in addition to donations "from at least 200,000 unique donors overall, and a minimum of 800 unique donors in at least 20 states".

"[122] During the January debate, he tweeted an image of his face on a meatball and other odd photos, which were poorly received by social media users.

"[130] Bloomberg, who has said in an editorial he believes climate change cannot await favorable political winds, has funded Beyond Carbon, modeled on the effort he had previously co-founded along with the Sierra Club, Beyond Coal, which he credits as contributing to the closing of half of the U.S.'s coal-fired power stations.

[131] Bloomberg's "All-In Economy" agenda,[133] especially focused on assisting mid-sized cities in the economically lagging American heartland in their becoming economic growth generators,[134][135] would include increased federal funding for community-colleges, technical training programs, and job-creating research and development endeavors that "invest in college partnerships and apprenticeships that connect people with identifiable jobs and career paths";[136] provide to workers, whether gig work, contract, and franchise employees, union organizing and collective bargaining rights;[136] increase to the national minimum wage to $15 an hour;[137][134][138] increase to the Earned Income Tax Credit; and, creating "Business Resource Centers" to assist entrepreneurs.

[139] Bloomberg said that he is open to spending 1 billion dollars to support the Democratic candidate in the presidential election, even if it will be Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.

[140] Though on February 17, Bloomberg ran an attack ad against Sanders's supporters, accusing them of using online bullying tactics to mute criticism of their candidate.