Brynne Craig, a senior adviser to Mr. Bloomberg, said Friday morning that the former mayor remained determined to fund the campaign to topple President Trump. “We’re changing the mechanism, not our commitment,” Ms. Craig said, saying an independent-expenditure field program would be “not as effective” as one coordinated through the D.N.C.
But Mr. Bloomberg’s decision not to form a new super PAC represents an abrupt retreat from months of chest-thumping promises from some of his political advisers, particularly his campaign manager, Kevin Sheekey, who had boasted that the former mayor would end up either mounting the best-funded presidential candidacy in history, or funding the biggest independent-expenditure effort ever.
On Friday’s call with former campaign employees, Dan Kanninen, the campaign’s states director, communicated the decision to those it affected most directly.
“I know that for those of you who have primaries that have yet to come, ending so abruptly, as all campaigns inevitably do, is a really odd feeling for very different reasons,” Mr. Kanninen said, according to a recording obtained by The New York Times.
“I can’t emphasize enough how much things have changed in the intervening days since March 3, and even the days before,” he said, referencing the Super Tuesday contests in which Mr. Biden won decisive victories and Mr. Bloomberg won only the caucuses in American Samoa.
After Mr. Bloomberg ended his campaign on March 4, Mr. Sheekey said that Mr. Bloomberg was already in the process of trademarking a name for an independent-expenditure group.
But at the time, other Bloomberg advisers cautioned that the former mayor was still a long way from deciding exactly how he would spend his money in the general election, and that nothing could move forward without vetting by campaign finance lawyers.
