Q&A – Campaign cash Bloomberg’s money vs the field of 2020 Democrats
Today’s entry...Media’s talking about what a big deal it is that Bloomberg’s spending $30 million or whatever it is. That doesn’t sound like a lot in presidential politics anymore. How does it compare to the other Democrats running? I think Democrats in news media are just trying to prop him up because they’re worried about their current options.
Bottom Line: Michael Bloomberg’s official entrance into the 2020 Democrat Presidential primary was marked with a $34 million initial ad buy. Words like “massive” and “colossal” have been used by some media outlets to describe the initial campaign. You raise a good point. Is it?
The reason it probably seems like $34 million isn’t huge to you has to do with the 2016 record breaking Presidential election spending. Hillary Clinton’s campaign spent $1.19 billion in her losing effort! President Trump spent $647 million in his winning effort. That’s greater than $1.8 billion between the two leading candidates - not even factoring in all of those who ran and lost in the primaries. So yes, by the time we’re talking about the general election – it is paltry. And to your point – even at this point in the primary it’s not huge.
Here’s how much the leading Democrats have spent so far:
- Biden: $28 million
- Warren: $34 million
- Sanders: $40 million
- Buttigieg: $28 million
- Harris: $26 million
So, truth be told Bloomberg’s buy isn’t massive or colossal, it simply catches him up to about the average spend of the top five polling candidates currently. It’s also interesting to note that Bernie’s campaign is easily the highest spending thus far among Democrats. I’m not sure most would suspect that’s the case. One other note. While collectively Democrats running for President have easily outspent President Trump. For a single campaign, no one is close to what the President has spent. He’s at an even $100 million so far on his reelection bid. And that’s without a credible primary challenge. He looks to easily surpass his $647 million spent in the 2016 cycle this time around.