Michael Bloomberg has ended his presidential campaign after having dumped $500 million dollars on his brief run. For that kingly sum, he won American Samoa. Yes, he won 49.9% of the votes, which is 175 votes. No, that isn't a misprint. Tulsi Gabbard was second with 103 votes. Wow, what a huge turnout. Of course, Bloomberg won delegates in states where he didn't carry the state, accumulating 60 delegates. Meanwhile, Joe Biden's campaign was close to insolvency and yet he won 10 delegates for every one Bloomberg won. Huh? Conventional wisdom says Bloomberg should have dominated the field thanks to his money advantage.
Bloomberg spent more on his short-lived primary campaign than Hillary Clinton spent on the primaries and general election combined. As has been demonstrated time and again, money does not automatically mean victory. Well-funded incumbents have been trounced by shoe-string campaigns. For example, Eric Cantor outspent Dave Brat by 40 to 1 and still lost in 2014. Joe Crowley outspent Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez by 18 to 1 and lost in 2018. Jeb Bush started the 2016 campaign with a daunting $100 million war chest but he flopped. His campaign won 4 delegates.
What Bloomberg needed to do was hire a Russian strategist. According to Rachel Maddow, the Russians were able to swing the national election in 2016 for the bargain sum of $200,000 to $300,000 in Facebook ads. Or did they? If Bloomberg couldn't win even one state with $500 million, how credible is it that Russia swung the election with 0.05% of that amount? It isn't.
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