Bloomberg Has Poured Nearly $500 Million Into Campaign — Stands At 12% In Latest Poll

Michael Bloomberg has a lot of money; by most estimates his net worth tops $60 billion.

But he’s burning through cash fast as the upstart candidate running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

The former New York City mayor has spent more than $463 million in the first two months of his campaign, according to a report filed to the Federal Election Commission. In January alone, Bloomberg dumped $220 million of his own money into his campaign — an average of more than $7 million per day. Those expenditures including $126 million on TV ads and $45 million in online advertising.

Before he entered the race, Bloomberg vowed to take no outside money and spend only his own cash, a vow to which he’s stuck.

“According to a campaign aide, the campaign has hired more than 2,100 employees throughout the country and are still in the process of hiring more. A campaign break down of the disclosure report shows it spent over $7 million in payroll last month alone,” ABC News reported.

According to the campaign’s breakdown of the filing, it spent $126.5 million on television advertising and $45.5 million on online advertising during the month of January, but the campaign has poured millions more just in the first few weeks of February.

As of Thursday afternoon, the Bloomberg campaign has spent more than $427 million just on television, radio and online ads, according to data from ad analysis firm Kantar/CMAG, which covers more up-to-date ad spending information.

Yet Bloomberg isn’t getting a whole lotta’ bang for his buck, at least so far. The mayor stands at just 12% in the most recent national poll conducted by The Economist and YouGov. A couple of other national polls put him a few points higher.

Real Clear Politics keeps a running average on odds from online betting sites. Bloomberg had soared up the charts there in recent days, hitting 34.6% on Valentine’s Day, nearly catching Democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, who stood at 39%. But those odds crashed after Bloomberg’s dismal performance in his first televised debate on Wednesday.

The day after the debate, the odds of Bloomberg winning the nomination plunged to 21.8%, while Sanders’ odds soared to 51.8%.

Every candidate in the debate took aim at Bloomberg, including the one-time front runner Sen. Elizabeth Warren. “I’d like to talk about who we’re running against, a billionaire who calls women ‘fat broads’ and ‘horse-faced lesbians,’” Warren said. “And, no, I’m not talking about Donald Trump. I’m talking about Mayor Bloomberg.”

Over the next two hours, Bloomberg got hammered for allegedly demeaning comments about women, several nondisclosure agreements he signed with female employees who accused him of sexual harassment, his much criticized stop-and-frisk policy as mayor of New York City, his fierce opposition to Obamacare, and his longtime support for Republican candidates.

At one point, NBC’s Chuck Todd, one of the moderators, even asked him, “Mr. Bloomberg, should you exist?”

The day before the debate, Sanders accused Bloomberg of trying to “buy the presidency.” “He said, ‘I don’t have to do that. I’m worth $60 billion. I have more wealth than the bottom 123 million Americans. I’ll buy the presidency,'” Sanders said during a CNN town hall. “That offends me very much.”

But estimates of Bloomberg’s wealth run as high as $64 billion. That means he’s spent just 0.7% of his fortune so far. He’s got plenty more cash in the bank.