Presidential Debate Number Nine: What Happens in Vegas, Mr. Bloomberg?

Las Vegas has witnessed some unforgettable fights. Over the decades, the Strip has featured matchups with Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, Mike Tyson and other heavy weights.

Against this historic landscape, enter Michael Bloomberg, former New York City mayor and one of the newest Democratic presidential candidates. His ad blitz has gone to the dogs, literally. Watch the Mike fur dogs ad. Three months and $350 million dollars’ worth of ads later, he qualified for the Vegas debate stage with one day to go.

Maybe “qualified” is too strong a word. The Democratic Party changed the rules. In response, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders pointed out “[T]hat is what being a multibillionaire is about. Some very good friends of mine who were competing in the Democratic nomination – people like Cory Booker of New Jersey, Julian Castro – work really, really hard. Nobody changed the rules to get them in the debate.”

After failing to qualify for earlier debates, Senator Booker and Julian Castro dropped their presidential bids. Both candidates unsuccessfully requested changes to the debate rules.

Ironically, the first-time debater joins an all-white lineup of candidates. It includes former Vice President Joe Biden, Bloomberg, former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Businessman Andrew Yang is out of the race.

All of this happened right before a more racially diverse electorate votes in Nevada, South Carolina and Super Tuesday, a day in which a third of primary voters cast ballots. One in five voters in Nevada are Latinx. Black voters are 60 percent of Democratic primary voters in South Carolina.

Bloomberg is not even on the ballot in the next two states with Primary Days, sites of the next two debates. He put his resources in mobilizing voters for Super Tuesday.

This investment is paying off. A poll of Virginia voters, one of the 14 states voting on March 3^rd, has the New York billionaire in a three-way tie with Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders for first place. Another shows the candidate surging 15 points to second place nationwide.

At 5 feet 8 inches and 142 pounds, Bloomberg is an unlikely heavy weight fighter. But that should not deter the five debate moderators from asking tough questions about issues of concern to voters.

There are so many questions to ask a candidate who has missed the entire retail politics season. Why did you switch from Republican to Democrat? How are you planning to right the damage of the policing tactic known as stop and frisk? Will you allow women who filed sexual-harassment cases against Bloomberg L.P. to speak publicly? If elected, what is your charter school policy?

Voters have less than two weeks to see how Bloomberg compares to the other six candidates. The debate stages on Feb 19 in Las Vegas and Feb 25 in South Carolina are the best opportunities to learn more about the new landscape.

When it comes to the Feb 19^th debate, what happens in Vegas, cannot stay in Vegas.

Holli L. Holliday is a practicing attorney and president of Sisters Lead Sisters Vote, a nonprofit c4 organization for, by and of black women.