Bloomberg Is Starting His Campaign With A Big Asset—His Gun-Control Group’s Email List

His campaign is “temporarily renting” the addresses of Moms Demand Action’s supporters.


Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg officially entered the 2020 Democratic race Sunday with a potent asset: The vast trove of email addresses amassed by Moms Demand Action, the nonpartisan gun control advocacy organization hosted under the umbrella of Everytown for Gun Safety, which Bloomberg co-founded and largely finances.

The leaders of Moms Demand Action state chapters and local groups received the news from Aimee Tavares, a senior national organizing director for the group, who sent an email roughly three and a half hours after news broke that Bloomberg would formally announce his candidacy. “Given his unique role in launching Everytown, his leadership in advancing the cause of gun safety, and the significant investments he’s made in helping to grow our movement, Mayor Bloomberg’s campaign is temporarily renting access to our list of supporters so they can communicate his plans for achieving our shared goal of a nation free from gun violence,” Tavares wrote.

Tavares added the campaign would not retain access to Moms Demand Action’s email list at the conclusion of Bloomberg’s bid. Members of the group would be “under no obligation to take any action” in response to Bloomberg’s campaign missives, and that “it is entirely up to our volunteers how they spend their volunteer time in this election and which candidates they choose to support, up and down the ballot,” she wrote.

Tavares’ email gave no endorsement of Bloomberg’s candidacy, but noted that “his participation will ensure that our issue remains at the forefront during the remainder of primary season.” In a Twitter thread announcing his candidacy, Bloomberg shared that he had “founded the largest gun safety group in history” alongside a photo of him posing with Moms Demand Action volunteers.

...but undoubtedly his campaign underlings have access to every contact MAIG/MMM/
Everytown for Gun Safety/MDA have or ever had, and are trawling them as I write this.

No doubt Bloomie will poll well with the quiet (and some not-so-quiet) suburban racists that either
approved (or simply elided) his stop-and-frisk policies and racism towards Muslims

ICYMI, scoop from me last night:

@MikeBloomberg's campaign is renting the huge email list for @MomsDemand—the grassroots arm of gun control group @Everytown, which Bloomberg co-founded and funds—to build support for his late entrance into the 2020 race