Howard Schultz, the billionaire former chief executive of Starbucks, who is considering running as an independent candidate in the next US presidential election, has defended his voting record. Mr Schultz, 65, blamed his busy travel schedule and a lack of local engagement for missing dozens of state, county and midterm elections. “Listen, I traveled all over the world. It’s not an excuse,” Mr Schultz told a packed auditorium. “I’ve not been as engaged locally as perhaps I could have been”. He made the comments while speaking at an event to promote his new book ‘From the Ground Up: A Journey to Reimagine the Promise of America’ in his hometown of Seattle on Thursday night. Mr Schultz added that he has voted in every presidential election since he turned 18 years old. On Wednesday, The Seattle Times ran a column which said that he had failed to vote in 27 out of 38 elections since 2005. A supporter of Mr Schultz’s White House run in Seattle Credit: Reuters The event was Mr Schultz’s first public appearance in Seattle, home to the company he ran for 36 years, since he announced on Sunday that he is considering running for the presidency as an independent candidate in the 2020 election. “Profound concern for where we are as a country”, as well as “the revenge politics on both sides”, have driven him to seriously weigh a bid, he said. Mr Schultz has been heavily criticized by Democrats who worry that if he runs he will split the vote and re-elect President Donald Trump for a second term. Outside the auditorium several dozen protestors gathered, some were holding signs which read “Pick a party” and “Grande ego, Venti mistake”, a play on words using Starbucks names for large cups of coffee. “I’m worried about what happened in 2000 where Ralph Nader ran and stole away enough of the votes from Al Gore, when it was really really close”, said Susan Glicksberg, 61 from Issaquah, Washington who was demonstrating against Mr Schultz standing. “Bush got the presidency because it was so close.” Inside the event, Mr Schultz pitched himself as a “centrist independent”, but offered few of his own policies. He did discuss his objections to policies from both the Democratic and Republican parties, including universal healthcare and corporate tax cuts respectively. Mr Schultz said that he plans to travel the country with his wife Sheri over the next few months before making a final decision on whether to stand in the spring or summer of this year. A vocal critic of Donald Trump, he said that he will not stand for the White House if it leads to a second term for the president. “I’m not going to do anything whatsoever to re-elect Donald Trump”, Mr Schultz said. “I’m trying to win the hearts and minds of the American people”. Despite the backlash, the businessman who is worth roughly $3.4bn (£2.6bn) said he has no plans to back down. “The negative reaction isn’t going to dissuade my conviction I have about what I feel in my heart that I need to do,” he said,
