Mike Bloomberg: An independent can't beat Donald Trump

NEW YORK (FOX 5 NY) - Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg is still weighing a campaign for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020 but has ruled out running as an independent.

Over the years, the Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent-turned-Democrat—who said he has "never been a partisan guy"—has flirted with running for president as an independent. But now the 76-year-old self-made billionaire doesn't believe an independent can beat President Donald Trump, a Republican.

"Given the strong pull of partisanship and the realities of the electoral college system, there is no way an independent can win," he wrote in a note on his website. "That is truer today than ever before."

Bloomberg said that he is not willing to derail a Democrat's chances of defeating Trump if he were to run on a third-party line.

"In 2020, the great likelihood is that an independent would just split the anti-Trump vote and end up re-electing the President," he wrote. "That's a risk I refused to run in 2016 and we can't afford to run it now."

Bloomberg's post is an apparent reaction to former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz's announcement that he is exploring a bid for president as a "centrist independent."

"We must remain united, and we must not allow any candidate to divide or fracture us," Bloomberg wrote. "The stakes couldn't be higher."

In October, Bloomberg changed his party registration to Democrat from unaffiliated.

He is the founder and CEO of financial data and media company Bloomberg L.P. He served as mayor of New York City for three terms between 2001 and 2013.