Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is skipping the early primaries for the Democratic presidential nomination in favor of concentrating on the delegate-rich states coming up in March and beyond, said Monday the primary calendar should be altered “to protect democracy from Republicans.”

Bloomberg, who already has spent $200 million on his campaign, is ignoring contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, which hold delegate selection contests beginning Feb. 3. Iowa and New Hampshire are 90% white and have a combined 10 electoral votes.

Instead, Bloomberg, 77, is concentrating on the March 3 Super Tuesday primaries in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia. After that, Arizona, Florida, Illinois and Ohio vote March 17, and Georgia votes on March 24. New York doesn’t hold its primary until the end of April.

Bloomberg said candidates waste too many resources and too much time on the first four primaries, small states with an outsize influence on who the party’s eventual nominee will be.

“We need a system that both better reflects our country and puts us in a better position to defeat a candidate like Donald Trump,” Bloomberg said in an op-ed published by CNN, adding: “The first two voting states, Iowa and New Hampshire, are among the most homogenous in the nation. While it's great that candidates reach out to voters in these states at every pancake breakfast and town hall around, what about African American, Latino, Asian American, Pacific Islanders, and other voters in places like Detroit, Montgomery [Alabama], Phoenix and Houston?”

He noted President Trump is spending his time in key states: Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and North Carolina.

“Right now, we are in danger of repeating 2016 in large part because, as Democrats focus on Iowa and New Hampshire, Trump is operating at full speed in the battleground states, with field staff and targeted television and digital advertisements. Tuesday, while Democrats are on stage in Des Moines, he'll be speaking to thousands of supporters in Wisconsin — a state Democrats need to rebuild the Blue Wall,” Bloomberg wrote.

He added: “But as we Democrats work to protect democracy from Republicans who seek to exclude voters, we must also look inward, because our own party's system of nominating a presidential candidate is both undemocratic and harms our ability to prepare for -- and win -- the general election.”

Bloomberg said in Texas during the weekend he will spend as much as $1 billion of his own money to defeat Trump -- even if he doesn’t win the 2020 Democratic nomination.

Trump denigrates the former New York mayor as “mini Mike Bloomberg.” The two long have been at odds, in part because Bloomberg was mayor in a city where Trump has concentrated much of his business and in part because Bloomberg is richer – Bloomberg is the eighth richest American on the Forbes list with $51 billion while Trump is 275th, with about $3 billion.

Bloomberg is considered a longshot for the nomination. Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who was former President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, said last month he didn’t think Bloomberg would get the nod.

“It’s insane. It’s crazy to think that America is looking for a short, Jewish president. Really? Because if they were, I’d be running,” Emanuel said at the Gridiron Club dinner.

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