Mike Bloomberg Closes In On $100M In Campaign Ad Spending

[brooklynite]

Ad Age

If we had to come up with an all-purpose tagline for the current crop of presidential candidates, we’d lean toward “A fat lot of good it did her”/“A fat lot of good it did him.” Sooner or later, of course, it will apply to all but one of them.

But for now it certainly works for Senator Kamala Harris, whose campaign blew through nearly $600,000 on TV and radio ads, according to the latest Ad Age Datacenter analysis of political ad spending in partnership with Kantar/CMAG—plus $2.3 million on Facebook ads, according to the social network’s own accounting. Harris suspended her campaign last week.

It also works for Senator Kristen Gillibrand, who, as we previously reported, spent $1.6 million on TV/radio ads, only to drop out in August. (Her final Facebook-spending tally is unclear because the social network deletes candidates from its public database when they end their campaigns.)

And it seems appropriate for media billionaire Mike Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor who joined the race about five minutes ago and yet somehow has already spent $58.4 million on TV/radio ads (including advance bookings), plus $1.3 million on Facebook ads, and—d’oh!—has failed to qualify for next week’s Democratic presidential debate.

And then there’s Tom Steyer—aka “Tom Who?” The San Francisco hedge fund billionaire has burned through an astonishing $77.1 million on TV/radio ads (also including advance bookings), plus $14 million on Facebook ads to date. For those keeping score at home, that adds up to $91.2 million, which means Mayor Mike is going to have to try a lot harder (read: spend a lot faster) if he wants to be first to, uh, achieve a $100-million campaign-ad burn rate this election cycle.

[redqueen]

1. He's already passed it

Link to tweet

[redqueen]

2. an *average* of $3.7 million per day

If he was willing to spend this to get democrats elected I'd be impressed.

The fact that he I spending it to get HIMSELF elected - not so much.

[PatSeg]

3. I agree

There are so many ways he could spend his wealth to make a difference. This feels too much like a vanity trip.

[madville]

4. The part about Harris doesn't make much sense

It says she only spent 2.9 million on TV/Radio/Facebook ads yet her campaign collected over 40 million before it shut down because they ran out of money? Sounds like they would have been better served on more advertising and a smaller organization out of the gate.