Bloomberg Is Still Trying To Buy The Election But Has Still Been Unable To Dominate The Weak Conservative Lane

The most interesting news about Biden I saw today was Branko Marcetic's piece for Jacobin about how Biden pulled the Democratic Party to the right starting in the 1980s when he helped Reagan start dismantling much of the New Deal. Marcetic found an old Biden quote from the Wilmington Morning News that Biden would never say during a primary but that defines him perfectly: "In a strange way the election of Ronald Reagan is more consistent with the budgetary thrust that a guy like me... has been going for for the past few years." Marcetic added that "Biden's already growing public discomfort with the New Deal legacy made him perfectly poised to drift rightward with the Reagan years... [admitting in 1981 that] “he was 'not concerned about social programs as much as the direction' the country was going... [During his 1988 presidential campaign], Biden continued to insist that the answers to US economic misfortune lay 'beyond the reach of government' and criticized 'the old Washington-based approach to economic policy.' America’s workplaces needed their own in-house daycare centers, he insisted, but not if the government mandated them; rather, the White House should make its own daycare center, because 'if other chief executives see a president doing it, they will likely follow suit.' He promised to balance the budget by 1993, though without any tax hikes. Other big ideas were poached from his rivals, like having companies give workers ninety days’ notice when they closed plants. And he reminded the public about his conservative positions on busing and abortion."

But that isn't the kind of stuff you'll hear on TV or read about in the corporate media, where they prefer to talk about the horse race. In Biden's case, it was how his six-figure ad buy across the Super Tuesday states is practically meaningless. He's targeting African-American voters in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia, reminding them that it was him, not Bloomberg, who was close to Obama.

According to data compiled by Advertising Analytics, an ad tracking firm, Biden is spending by far the least on Super Tuesday TV ads out of all the candidates who participated in Tuesday night’s debate in South Carolina.

Bernie Sanders, the current frontrunner for the Democratic nomination who has blown by Biden in both national polling and the hunt for national convention delegates, has aired or reserved roughly $13.5 million worth of airtime across all 14 of the Super Tuesday states. He’s dropped at least seven figures in three states-- Texas, North Carolina and Colorado-- and mid-six figures in three additional states.

Amy Klobuchar’s campaign has booked about $3.5 million worth of television time, and her campaign says it has invested more in digital spending. Pete Buttigieg, another campaign that went up late in Super Tuesday states, hits about $1.6 million in TV spending, and Elizabeth Warren comes in at a bit over $916,000.

All of them are dwarfed by the two self-financing billionaires in the race. According to Advertising Analytics, Mike Bloomberg has spent over $183 million on blanketing the airwaves in Super Tuesday states-- en route to spending over half a billion dollars in total on advertising for his campaign so far-- while Tom Steyer has spent over $35 million, more than double what Sanders dropped.

Yesterday NBC reported that Bloomberg is absolutely owning black media, "spending a record $3.5 million to advertise his presidential campaign in the black news media in an aggressive attempt to garner African American support in his bid to earn the Democratic nomination." And on Monday, the Hollywood Reporter carried a piece by Erik Hayden about how Bloomberg's TV ad blitz is burying everyone else's efforts in California, having spent $63.2 million on TV alone here.

To compare, the only candidate who's in the same ballpark is fellow billionaire candidate Tom Steyer, who has spent $27.2 million on television ads in California, or less than half of what Bloomberg is spending, the research firm finds. Meanwhile, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has spent just $6.3 million in TV ads in the state so far.

“Bloomberg, Sanders, and Steyer are the only three candidates on air in California," notes Rachel Haskins, marketing manager at Advertising Analytics. "We can’t say if the campaigns have adjusted their spending because of Bloomberg’s totals, but Steyer has been spending in California since December 8, and Sanders went up on January 26, even before the Iowa caucuses."

Haskins added, "In 2016, Sanders didn’t hit the airwaves until May 1-- a month before the June 3 CA primary. Sanders has also spent $6.3 million on TV in California since January; in 2016, he spent $1.8 million in the state.” Others who've spent relatively negligible amounts on TV ads in California include Rep. Tulsi Gabbard ($73,704 last July) and former candidate Sen. Cory Booker ($1,500 on cable in December), per Advertising Analytics.

While Bloomberg is dominating linear airwaves, political spending on Facebook in California is less lopsided. The Bloomberg campaign has spent $5.8 million on Facebook ads in the state, ahead of Steyer ($4.6 million), Sanders ($1.5 million), Mayor Pete Buttigieg ($668,889), Senator Elizabeth Warren ($623,769), former Vice President Joe Biden ($420,183) and Senator Amy Klobuchar ($202,348), according to Advertising Analytics' tally through Feb. 20.

Despite his advertising blitz, Bloomberg is trailing in California support. Senator Sanders leads the field with 27.9 percent, while Bloomberg garners 14.7 percent, ahead of Biden (12.9 percent), Warren (12.4 percent), Buttigieg (11 percent), Klobuchar (5.6 percent) and Steyer (3.2 percent), per Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight state poll average.

Writing for the L.A. Times, Jenny Jarvie reported that Bloomberg has dumped a fortune into advertising in hopelessly red states so he can win delegates on Super Tuesday. His strategy is states like Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas "illustrates a major reason why his big-spending bid for the nomination forges ahead despite his widely derided performance in last week's debate, which caused a significant drop in his national standing in some polls."

As of Monday, Bloomberg had spent more than $191 million on advertising in Super Tuesday states, according to Advertising Analytics. That compares with $36 million for the next-highest spender, billionaire Tom Steyer, $12 million for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and minimal amounts for other Democrats.

In Alabama, he has poured more than $8 million into TV and radio ads in the last two months while Sanders has spent just $142,000 and two of his main competitors, former Vice President Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind.-- have not advertised. Bloomberg has visited Montgomery twice, opened up four campaign offices and hired 30 people while most of his rivals have two paid staffers or fewer.

Part of Bloomberg’s pitch is that national Democrats have long neglected the South, essentially ceding states like Alabama to Republicans, and he'll change that.

“I believe it’s time for the national Democratic Party to stop ignoring Alabama,” he said earlier this month to the Alabama Democratic Conference.

“I’ve devoted a lot of my resources to those swing states from Michigan and Wisconsin to Florida and Arizona, but I’m also working to create what we call a new generation of swing states-- states like Alabama and Texas, which could very well turn blue if more people voted.”

...Some of the other candidates are organizing here. Sanders has more than 1,000 volunteers contacting voters through phone banks and knocking on doors across the state. The Buttigieg campaign plans 100 events Saturday. Still, Bloomberg has likely amassed the largest Democratic presidential staff in Alabama history, Democrats say.

“His presence is overwhelming,” said Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed, who was elected last fall as the first African American in the office.

“It matters,” Reed added. “It helps him gain some traction in communities that may not have been touched by a campaign."

...“The fact is the people in Alabama really don't know Bloomberg — unlike Joe Biden, who has been into Alabama for a long time,” said Sen. Doug Jones, a Biden supporter. In 2017, Biden came to Birmingham to campaign for Jones.

But while Biden has won the endorsement of Jones and some other party leaders, including Rep. Terri A. Sewell and Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin, his poor showings in Iowa and New Hampshire, and his distant second-place finish behind Sanders in Nevada on Saturday, did not help his case with undecided officials.

With no clear front-runner nationally, and little competition here yet, Bloomberg has seized the opening to spread the message that he is experienced, well-funded and the candidate who can beat President Trump.

“His strategy of skipping the first four states is incredibly risky,” said Andra Gillespie, associate professor of political science at Emory University. “But with Joe Biden's campaign having faltered, and perhaps having stumbled irrevocably, his strategy doesn't seem to be as far-fetched or quixotic as it once did.”

A former Republican, Bloomberg faces challenges in courting black voters after strong criticism of his support as New York mayor of stop-and-frisk policing and his suggestion that the end of redlining contributed to the 2008 economic collapse. Yet locals say his wealth allows him to get noticed, especially among older, more moderate black Democrats uncertain whom to support.

“Bloomberg has had a free hand in places like Alabama to be nothing but positive,” said Glen Browder, a professor at Jacksonville State University and a former Democratic congressman. “When Bloomberg comes to town flush with cash, not asking for contributions and just saying, 'I’d like to have your support,' that’s a pretty powerful introduction.

But as people come to focus on just who and what Bloomberg is... his support shrivels and dies. CNBC's Yelena Dzhanova explained how Bloomberg's moment dissipated after voters saw him in action on the debate stage. She wrote that "While Bloomberg has positioned himself as the 'cool' candidate on social media, reaching out to so-called influencers to post endorsements of his candidacy, the effort may be falling flat. Support for Bloomberg began to stagnate around two weeks ago, according to national polls. He’s hovered around the 15% mark since a week before the Nevada debate, according to a RealClearPolitics polling average. He had been rising in national support thanks to massive spending on campaign ads. He’s plowed more than $500 million of his own personal fortune into those messages since he entered the race in November.

...Here are some other Super Tuesday states where support for Bloomberg has plateaued:

• Minnesota: Bloomberg’s support has decreased from 9% to 3% in the span of a few days after his first debate. Sen. Amy Klobuchar is in the lead in Minnesota, her home state, with 29%, according to the latest poll conducted between Feb. 17 and Feb. 20.
• Texas: Bloomberg in the most recent poll is in third place with 17%, down from the 18% that he garnered in a poll conducted from Feb. 12 to Feb. 18. Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sanders are tied for first place, with 24% each, according to the latest poll from Public Policy Polling conducted between Feb. 24 and Feb. 25.
• North Carolina: Bloomberg remains in third place with 17%, up slightly from 16% in a poll conducted between Feb. 12 and Feb. 18. He trails Biden, who has 23%, and Sanders, who has 20%, according to the most recent poll conducted from Feb. 23 to Feb. 24.
• Oklahoma: Bloomberg remained at 20%, but fell from first place to second behind Biden, who has 21%, according to the most recent poll conducted between Feb. 17 and Feb. 21.