Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz’s announcement Sunday that he is considering an independent presidential run sent tremors through the Democratic Party. | Stephen Brashear/Getty Images 2020 Election Howard Schultz's camp says he can save Democrats from Trump Schultz advisers push back against claims an independent bid will throw 2020 race to Donald Trump.

Howard Schultz’s advisers have a message for the former Starbucks chief‘s critics: Schultz could be the fail-safe plan in the event Democrats nominate a far-left candidate in 2020.

In the 24 hours since Schultz announced that he is considering running for president as an independent, he’s been besieged by Democrats fearful that a well-funded, third-party candidate would only siphon votes from the Democratic nominee, handing President Donald Trump a second term.


Steve Schmidt, a former chief strategist to Republican John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign and a sharp Trump critic who is advising Schultz, told POLITICO on Monday that it is possible Democrats will need Schultz to bail them out.

Asked whether Schultz’s potential entry into the race would throw the election to Trump, Schmidt said: “It seems that nobody who is speculating about that on Twitter has given any thought to the possibility that the Democratic Party nominates someone who is so far to the left that it guarantees Trump a reelection. And at that point, the only person who would theoretically be able to stop Trump from a second term is a centrist candidacy of someone like Schultz.”

Schmidt said, “There’s a question that he poses. And the question is a pretty simple one: Is this it? Are we fated to be in this duopoly in perpetuity? Is this the best that we can hope for, or is there potentially a disruption that could occur? We have 57 choices of ketchup and 500 TV channels. Very nearly everything has been disrupted in the country, from how we buy groceries to how we consume news, except for the system that produces the political leadership of the country.”

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Schultz, his adviser said, is putting forward “a proposition about possibility: Is there a possibility that we might be able to do better, that we might come together, that we need to unify the country.”

In addition to Schmidt, Schultz’s advisers include Bill Burton, a veteran of the Obama White House who left his job on Friday at the public affairs firm SKDKnickerbocker. The two declined to disclose how much they’re making working for Schultz, although they said it was in line with what consultants usually make. They have done polling to gauge a potential path for Schultz, and they argue that if Schultz runs, he will open up presidential politics not only to independent voters, but to a swath of nonbattleground states that campaigns typically ignore.

“Every presidential election in modern history has been decided by a handful of battleground states and a handful of battleground precincts inside those states,” Burton said. “I’ve been a Democrat my whole life, and my view has always been that more people should vote, more voices should matter, more folks should get engaged. This question that Howard is asking about whether or not he should run and whether or not there is energy out there for this idea, is the greatest possible manifestation of that, because it means everybody would matter and every area would count.”

Burton is staying registered as a Democrat.

Schultz’s announcement Sunday on CBS’ “60 Minutes” that he is considering an independent run sent tremors through the Democratic Party, where the memories of such third-party candidates as Ralph Nader in 2000 and Jill Stein in 2016 remain raw. Though experts disagree about the influence of Nader and Stein on those elections, many Democrats still contend they drew votes in critical states from Al Gore and Hillary Clinton, respectively, helping the Republican win.

On Monday, billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who has previously considered running as an independent but who is now mulling a Democratic primary campaign, said there “is no way an independent” presidential candidate can win — and that the presence of one would only play spoiler in a general election.

“In 2020, the great likelihood is that an independent would just split the anti-Trump vote and end up reelecting the President,” Bloomberg, a former New York mayor, said in a prepared statement. “That’s a risk I refused to run in 2016 and we can’t afford to run it now.”

“We must remain united, and we must not allow any candidate to divide or fracture us,” Bloomberg said. “The stakes couldn’t be higher.”

In Starbucks’ home state of Washington, a local Indivisible group is planning a rally Thursday to protest Schultz’s potential candidacy outside the Seattle stop of his book tour promoting his new memoir, “From the Ground Up: a Journey to Reimagine the Promise of America.” The state Democratic Party chairwoman Tina Podlodowski, who has publicly urged Schultz not to run, will speak at the rally.

A spokesperson for Burton’s former firm, which has Democratic ties, confirmed in a statement that Burton “has left to pursue projects he could not have pursued or participated in at SKDK. We wish Bill well.”

Asked what the firm meant by “projects” Burton couldn’t do at the firm, the spokesperson responded: “Help an independent run for president. We are Democrats.”

Yet despite the criticism that Schultz‘s announcement has received from Democratic Party officials, it was not without supporters — especially among more moderate Democrats and activists drawn to his business credentials.

Steve Westly, a former California state controller and major bundler of campaign contributions for Obama, said Monday that Schultz’s interview marked a “strong entry” into the race.

“He’s a good guy,” said Westly, an early eBay executive who knew Schultz from his time on that company’s board of directors. “I think he just made a judgment that the party is not always open to outsiders.”

Westly acknowledged “a risk” that Schultz, who has never met Trump, might play spoiler in a general election. But he said, “I also appreciate that there is, if you just are honest and look at the numbers, an increasingly high number of people who are not relating to either party … I think he is a lifelong Democrat, I think he’s largely Democratic. But I think, as he said in his announcement on ‘60 Minutes,’ both parties have some work to do, and it’s hard to disagree with that.”

Like most major Democratic donors, Westly has yet to commit to a candidate in a wide-open field. Of Schultz, he said he would “have to get my arms around the notion that he’s running outside the Democratic Party."

But, he said, “It’s not as crazy a thing as it might have been five or 10 years ago.”

Zach Montellaro contributed to this report.