How Bloomberg Is Trying to Win

With roughly $410 million, Michael R. Bloomberg bought omnipresence. Whether that translates to votes is a premise that faces its first test on Super Tuesday, when more than one-third of all delegates are up for grabs. It will be the first time Mr. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, is competing in a primary; he opted to skip the first four nominating contests.

Though Mr. Bloomberg averages a few in-person events per day and has a staff of 2,500 around the country, his sprawling campaign is powered by one of the most traditional weapons in a candidate’s arsenal: the television ad.

The breadth of Mr. Bloomberg’s broadcast campaign is numbing. The roughly $410 million on television ads alone — $370 million spent, and another $41 million reserved through super Tuesday — is more than Hillary Clinton and President Trump spent on television ads during their entire 2016 presidential campaigns, primary and general elections combined, according to Advertising Analytics, an ad tracking firm. And Mr. Bloomberg, who entered the race in November, did it in four months.

The inundation of the airwaves amounts to a big bet by the billionaire that sheer volume can be enough to build a base of support that, starting on Super Tuesday, will allow him to pull away from candidates who have been in the race for much longer.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/26/us/politics/michael-bloomberg-ad-campaign-spending.html