Bloomberg: Dems headed for midterm ‘wipeout’ without ‘immediate course correction’

Former New York City Mayor and 2020 presidential contender Michael Bloomberg is warning that Democrats are in for an election-year disaster if they don’t switch things up fast.

Mr. Bloomberg said the recent recall of school board members in San Francisco is the latest bad omen for Democrats, who were already reeling from Republican Glenn Youngkin’s victory in Virginia’s gubernatorial race and a closer-than-anticipated gubernatorial race in deep blue New Jersey last fall.

“I continue to believe that a healthy and vibrant Democratic Party remains essential to beating back the Republican Party’s dangerous turn toward authoritarianism and its tolerance for election subversion,” Mr. Bloomberg said in an op-ed. “But I am deeply concerned that, absent an immediate course correction, the party is headed for a wipeout in November, up and down the ballot.”

Mr. Bloomberg, a Democrat turned Republican turned independent turned Democrat again, said the “earthquake that shook San Francisco needs to shake up our party, before voters do it themselves in November.”

Mr. Bloomberg said school board members in San Francisco blew it by turning a blind eye to opening COVID-shuttered schools when it was proven to be safe, showing more interest in renaming schools in the name of “political correctness” than educating students, and mistakenly tried to change the merit-based admissions system at one of the nation’s top schools to a lottery format, angering many Asian-American voters.

“A recent Democratic Party poll showed that voters perceive it as being too ‘focused on the culture wars’ — from renaming schools to defunding the police,” he said. “But the advice that party leaders are giving members of Congress — to ‘correct the record’ when Republicans criticize them on schools and culture — isn’t going to cut it.”

“Voters need to hear from Democrats that schools remained closed for too long, and that improving schools means closing achievement gaps, not eliminating standards,” he said.

Mr. Bloomberg said his party could benefit from following the lead of new Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a former policeman who has vowed to take a tough stand on public safety.

“His victory demonstrated that in deep blue cities, not to mention purple suburbs, Democrats want leaders who have the backbone to stand tall and take the political hits that come with being a practical problem-solver,” he said.