

Bloomberg, and he focused heavily on early voting states.

Steyer, who has never held elected office before, started the race with slightly less name recognition than Mr. Steyer placed seventh in Iowa, sixth in New Hampshire and fifth in Nevada. With more than $150 million spent in television ads, Mr. Of course, another self-funding billionaire - Tom Steyer - has had little success with the vast sums he has spent on his presidential campaign. “People make too much of the word ‘unprecedented,’ but this was truly unprecedented, in how much money he spent, how quickly he spent it and how unopposed that money was,” said Ken Goldstein, a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco. 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. Bloomberg, who entered the race in November, did it in four months. 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. Bloomberg’s broadcast campaign is numbing. 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. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, is competing in a primary he opted to skip the first four nominating contests. 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. States in white will hold elections on Super Tuesday. Locations are based on media market areas.

Maps show all ads airing in 15-minute increments.
