Dallas Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban Hired Pollster To See How He'd Fare With Donald Trump And Joe Biden in 2020 Race

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban hired a pollster to gauge his chances as an independent candidate in the 2020 presidential race.

In a podcast on Thursday, the billionaire told David Axelrod of The Axe Files that he had hired someone several weeks ago to evaluate his chances in the 2020 elections, as he was still obsessed with the idea of running for president. Mark Cuban revealed he had been harboring presidential ambitions for years but he just felt his chances weren’t good enough.

“My family voted it down,” said Cuban. “Otherwise I would have,” he added.

Cuban revealed he planned to run as an independent candidate but decided not to pursue it further after learning how he would match up in a presidential race with Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. The pollster reportedly told him he could pull around 77% of independent votes and take some votes from his contenders, but he knew his prospects of winning were too low to even try.

“In a three-way between me, Biden, and Trump, I dominated the independent vote—I got like 77 percent of it and was able to take some votes away from Donald and some votes away from Biden,” he explained. “But in aggregate, I was only able to get up to 25 percent. 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. That’s why I didn’t pursue it further,” he added.

In 2016, Cuban also planned to run for president but decided to endorse Hillary Clinton instead. Following Trump’s victory, he continued to float the possibility of running for the presidency in 2020. However, he officially gave up his hopes in September when his family rejected the idea.

As of now, Cuban said he is not yet ready to endorse any of the candidates in the November elections. He also criticized Trump and his leadership, saying he’s not a leader at all. “He has no communication skills. To this day, nothing is his fault. He’s never admitted anything and you can’t be the leader of the free world and play the victim card all the time,” he said.