Michael Bloomberg is putting his money where is his mouth is, outspending every major Democratic presidential candidate in television commercials by himself.
The former New York mayor, who only entered the race to unseat Donald Trump in next year’s election in late November, has already committed $109 million in TV ads as of Dec. 16, according to data from Advertising Analytics, a company that tracks political campaign advertising. Ad Analytics compiled its data from TV stations, which are required by the FCC to publicly disclose political spending.
That is almost double what the second-highest TV ad spender, billionaire Tom Steyer, who has spent $58 million so far. The next highest on the list is Elizabeth Warren with just over $9 million. In fact, Bloomberg alone has spent more than every other Democratic candidate combined.
Don’t believe us? Here how it breaks down (using the candidates who qualified for the most recent debate as our marker):
- Michael Bloomberg: $109.2 million
- Tom Steyer: $58.1 million
- Elizabeth Warren: $9.2 million
- Bernie Sanders: $8.67 million
- Pete Buttigieg: $8.65 million
- Joe Biden: $6.6 million
- Andrew Yang: $4.7 million
- Amy Klobuchar: $1.9 million
Ad Analytics data includes commitments through the first week of February. The first primary is set for Feb. 3, 2020 with the Iowa Caucus, followed by the New Hampshire on Feb. 11, Nevada (Feb. 22) and South Carolina (Feb. 29).
Bloomberg’s campaign has overwhelmingly targeted broadcast stations, with $103 million, while just over $6 million has gone to cable.
Bloomberg’s first week including more than $30 million in TV ads from Nov. 25-Dec. 3, the most ever for most ad dollars ever spent by a political candidate in a single week. It far outpaced the old record of $24 million by Barack Obama during the last week of his 2012 re-election campaign.