Former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb told a room full of Mike Bloomberg supporters in Wheat Ridge on Saturday that he is backing the billionaire and former New York mayor because Bloomberg is the Democrat best equipped to take on Donald Trump.

“For me, the analysis was this: Who is the best person who can defeat Trump?” Webb said at a Bloomberg field office in a strip mall. “Who is the best person that has demonstrated the ability to govern a large government organization? Who is the best person that has demonstrated the ability to do well in business without a ton of bankruptcies and everybody suing him?”

Added Webb, who referred to the president several times as “King Donald”: “We need someone that can win, and Michael Bloomberg can win.”

Bloomberg, who has already spent more than $300 million on his campaign, is ramping up a massive operation in Colorado and other states that vote on March 3, known as Super Tuesday, after skipping the early nominating contests in February. He’s opening nine field offices on the Front Range and has hired more than 50 staffers in the state.  

Webb, Denver’s first African American mayor and a leading figure in the Democratic Party since the early 1970s, said he was satisfied with Bloomberg’s apologies for the New York police department’s stop-and-frisk policy, which predominantly targeted young black and Hispanic men with what a federal judge ruled was “indirect racial profiling.”

“It was a mistake,” Webb said, crediting Trump for “throwing out” an issue that has also been raised by other Democratic presidential candidates. “And having been a mayor three terms, I know we made mistakes, we’re not perfect. But the more important issue is when you make a mistake, did you own it, did you not run away from it, did you say we made a mistake and we’re going to keep moving forward.”

Webb, who formally endorsed Bloomberg on Wednesday, said he stuck with his endorsement of Michael Bennet in the presidential primary until the Colorado senator dropped out Tuesday night after the New Hampshire primary.

“I was raised in Colorado; I’m old fashioned,” Webb said. “I was with Michael Bennet. Even though I knew Michael wasn’t going to win, I thought it was important that we support our own kind of folks.”

Webb said the decision to go with Bloomberg was easy because of what he described as the urgency of denying Trump a second term.

“I have never been more fearful as an American about our country, of having a president that does not care about the Constitution and the principles set forward in the Declaration of Independence,” he said. “And for those folks that were silly enough to believe that after the impeachment trial was held in the Senate – and it was farce, because it wasn’t a trial, because you can’t have a trial with no witnesses – that has made him even more emboldened, because he has no conscience.”

Retiree Barry Peters, who leads a group of about 90 politically active residents in a Highlands Ranch retirement community, said he likes what he’s seen of Bloomberg.

“I’m excited by the fact that Mike’s campaign is just connecting with people who are independents; they’re Democrats, and they’re even Republicans,” he said.

“What’s happening is that people are so in need of a candidate who can beat Trump that they’re saying ‘Who can do it?’ And Mike brings that expertise, that well-organized campaign, that experience from being mayor of New York, and just the commitment to values that so many Americans share, whether it’s stopping gun violence or stopping climate change or just putting America back together again with its American values.”

He said the contrast between Bloomberg’s reversal on the stop-and-frisk policy and Trump’s approach was stark.

“I can remember Mike for all the good things he did in New York. And I can remember him for the thing he’s now apologized for,” Peters said. “I really admire somebody who can admit when they’ve done something wrong and say, ‘I’m sorry, it was wrong.’ Trump has not learned that lesson. He never admits anything wrong. It takes a grown-up to acknowledge mistakes.”

Webb dismissed a fresh round of charges that Bloomberg faced numerous lawsuits alleging a culture of harassment at his company, due in part to his profane and sexist comments about women, according to a Saturday Washington Post report.

“I think this is early attack season, where people are going to go after him on every allegation, every issue that has come up,” Webb told Colorado Politics. “He didn’t have the chance to be vetted as much as some of these other candidates. But at the end of the day, there’s one issue: who can beat Donald Trump.”

He added: “I suspect before this election is over, there’ll be a new allegation about Bloomberg, and you know what it’s going to be? Bloomberg is going to walk across the Hudson River, and Trump people are going to say he couldn’t swim.”