Michael Bloomberg said Friday morning that he will make no endorsement in the race to succeed him as New York City mayor.
"I've decided I'm just not going to make an endorsement in this race," Bloomberg said during his weekly radio appearance with John Gambling on WOR.
"My job's to govern, and to help the next guy," he said. "Whoever the voters elect, I want to make sure that person is ready to succeed."
Bloomberg's decision comes as a shock. His disdain for Democratic candidate Bill de Blasio's platform seemed to suggest that Republican candidate Joe Lhota was a shoe-in to receive his support.
And in a New York magazine interview this month Bloomberg applauded The New York Times for endorsing Christine Quinn and Joe Lhota as their favorite candidates in the Democratic and Republican primaries, respectively.
The New York Post also reported last week that, according to unnamed sources, Bloomberg would endorse Lhota.
"Mike Bloomberg and I had a discussion back in January," Lhota said last week, days before he won the Republican nomination for mayor. "He’s staying out of the primary. I will talk to him next Tuesday night-Wednesday morning about the future and where we are going.”
Many on Twitter Friday speculated as to why Bloomberg decided not to endorse Lhota in the end:
@Azi @courtneycgross he has certainly made his opinion of @BilldeBlasio clear; his support hardly helped Quinn. Possible Lhota doesn't want?
— amandabee (@amandabee) September 13, 2013
Bloomberg's close relationship to Christine Quinn was seen as one of the major reasons she was defeated in Tuesday's primary.
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