ELECTIONS are never won by money alone, but a weighty campaign chest gives candidates for political office a boost both practical and psychological. On June 20th moderate Democratic candidates for Congress received such a fillip when the New York Times reported that Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire, political independent, and former mayor of New York, intends to spend at least $80m on the mid-term elections, mostly on Democratic congressional candidates—with the aim of flipping the House of Representatives. Mr Bloomberg’s pledge is to date the biggest political donation to the mid-terms campaigns.

Democrats need to flip 23 seats in the House in November to regain the majority. The Economist’s statistical model for the mid-term elections currently predicts Democrats have a 70% chance of doing that, but political fortunes can change quickly (and statistical models can get it wrong). Although each of the 435 seats in the House is up for election, the real battle for control is fought in some 70 seats. Mr Bloomberg is likely to focus his spending on the Democrats running for these seats who share his political convictions. The New Yorker is pro-business, socially liberal and a campaigner for strict gun control, immigration reform and environmental protection.

“Republicans in Congress have had almost two years to prove they could govern responsibly,” Mr Bloomberg said in a statement on June 20th. “They failed. As we approach the 2018 mid-terms, it's critical that we elect people who will lead in ways that this Congress won’t—both by seeking to legislate in a bipartisan way, and by upholding the checks and balances that the Founding Fathers set up to safeguard ethics, prevent the abuse of power, and preserve the rule of law.”

In the past, Mr Bloomberg has backed candidates in both parties. In the last election he gave $10m to Pat Toomey, a Republican, because he broke with the National Rifle Association and helped to write a bipartisan bill aimed at closing loopholes in background checks of potential gun owners. He also donated some $10m to Maggie Hassan, a Democratic former governor of New Hampshire, who was running to defeat the Republican incumbent senator who had voted against Mr Toomey’s bill. Mr Toomey won his re-election as Republican senator for Pennsylvania and Ms Hassan became the junior Democratic senator for New Hampshire. This year Mr Bloomberg is supporting both Democratic and Republican gubernatorial candidates who have political views similar to his. “There are good people in both parties, and neither has a monopoly on good ideas,” said Mr Bloomberg.

Mr Bloomberg has asked Howard Wolfson, a former executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which is dedicated to electing Democrats to the House, to oversee the flow of the funds. The biggest donor so far to Democratic causes and campaigns is Tom Steyer, a San Francisco-based former hedge-fund manager, who has poured an estimated $30m into this year’s mid-term election cycle. Mr Steyer is also funding a campaign to impeach President Donald Trump. Mr Bloomberg disapproves of that; he said in his statement that, “nothing could be more irresponsible” than Democrats calling for impeachment.

Is Mr Bloomberg’s spending spree the start of a run for the presidency in 2020? He has twice toyed with and abandoned the idea of running as an independent. When explaining his decision not to run in 2016, he said that he was not sure he had a good chance of winning the presidency and he did not want to be a third-party spoiler. The latter point would not be valid if he were to run on a Democratic ticket in 2020. His age should not be a problem either. At 76, Mr Bloomberg is four years older than Mr Trump, but extremely fit (he works out every day at the crack of dawn). Yet he still has reservations about the Democrats, especially those on the populist left. A lot is likely to depend on whether the party’s centrists will gain the upper hand, and perform well in the mid-terms.