WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg have purchased dueling Super Bowl ads – and those ads don't come cheap.
ABC News reported a 30-second ad is estimated to cost north of $5 million. President Trump and Bloomberg each purchased 60 seconds of air time. An ad that length costs upwards of $10 million.
These ad buys are just one example of how and why this presidential election will be the most expensive.
When multi-billionaire Bloomberg entered the race, something changed. Experts are calling it "the Bloomberg effect."
"There's no doubt about it. I mean, this is an unprecedented sum of money that's been spent," ABC News Political Director Rick Klein said.
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Bloomberg, who was ranked No. 8 on the 2019 "Forbes 400" list of the wealthiest Americans, is forgoing fundraising, instead choosing to self-fund his campaign. According to Bloomberg News, the former New York mayor has spent more than $250 million on political ads alone since joining the Democratic pool of candidates in late November.
"We don't know what he's spending on staffing. He's got a whole floor right on Times Square in Manhattan, in addition to dozens of field offices around the country," Klein said.
And Bloomberg's spending is having an impact on other campaigns. The Wall Street Journal, citing information from media-data company Advertising Analytics, reported that after Bloomberg purchased TV ads in Houston, the cost of ads jumped 45%.
And ad costs aren't the only thing being affected.
"There's even a battle for staffers. There's a talent drain that Michael Bloomberg, by bidding up the price of what it would normally take to get a field organizer, has made it more expensive for everyone," Klein said.
Money is the reason every other Democrat has dropped out of the race. But spending can only get you so far: Bloomberg is only polling between 8% and 10% nationally. And candidates like Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are putting targets on the backs of the rich.
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"There may not be space for someone to – a billionaire from New York – to buy his way into the primary process in the modern, Democratic party of 2020," Klein said. "It looks a lot different even [than] when it did when Michael Bloomberg was Mayor. And when he was Mayor, by the way, he was a Republican and then an Independent. So, it may [be] a massive miscalculation or he may have rolled the dice and nailed it exactly."
Bloomberg's name won't even be on the ballot in the first four primary elections. But he will be on the Super Tuesday ballots – including in Texas.
The deadline to register to vote in that election is Monday, Feb. 3. Here's where you can find an application.
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