Mark Cuban said he won’t run for president in 2020 against President Donald Trump and presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden after hiring a pollster and analyzing his odds.
“In a three-way between me, [Joe] Biden and [Donald] Trump, I dominated the independent vote — I got like 77 percent percent of it and was able to take some votes away from Donald and some votes away from Biden,” the Dallas Mavericks owner shared during his appearance on “The Axe Files” podcast with former Obama adviser David Axelrod.
The comments were noted by The Hill in a piece published Thursday. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: ‘It’s More Show Than Go’: Dallas Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban Reacts To Texas Reopening)
JUST IN: Mark Cuban says he’s decided not to run for president https://t.co/rmJAhbCdUE pic.twitter.com/kVhhS1MkcY
— The Hill (@thehill) June 4, 2020
“But in aggregate, I was only able to get up to 25 percent,” he added. “From every which way, crosstab, you name it, I had it analyzed and scrutinized every which way, projected, and they could only see me getting up to 25 percent.” (RELATED: Pearl Jam Postpones North American Tour Over Growing Coronavirus Concerns)
The Mavericks owner shot down the idea that he had decided not to run due to a concern that if he did so, he might take votes away from Biden and inadvertently help Trump.
“Not so much that,” Mark told Axelrod. “I just didn’t think I could win. The competitive side of me thought, when people heard me speak, when people heard my positions, when people heard the fact that I understood what I was talking about and understood technology and none of the candidates understood technology that maybe I could do it.”
At one point in the interview, the 61-year-old “Shark Tank” host revealed that his family wasn’t completely behind the idea of his presidential run either, per Yahoo.com
“If the numbers would have come back significantly higher and I would have been able to take more away from either or both candidates then I probably would have tried to convince my family,” Cuban explained. “But given where [the numbers] were it just wasn’t worth it.”
The NBA owner had floated the idea of running for president in 2015 against Trump and Hillary Clinton. Then, earlier this year, he refused to rule out the idea of a third-party run in the 2020 election.