Michael Bloomberg’s presidential campaign believes the lack of an immediate clear winner in Monday night’s Iowa caucus bolsters the former mayor’s prospects and has decided to double its already massive television advertising footprint to capitalize on the chaos.
“This is the best-case scenario,” Howard Wolfson, a senior Bloomberg adviser, told the Washington Post. “After a year of running, the field is as unsettled as ever. No one has made the sale or even come close to it. Meanwhile, we are taking the fight to Trump every day.”
In addition to doubling his spending in markets where he is already advertising, Bloomberg has also decided expand his staff to more than 2,000 people, according to the New York Times.
Bloomberg is not competing in the first four state primaries, and needs the race to remain competitive during those primaries in order to have a clear shot at winning the campaign. The delay in the results of the Iowa Caucus, and a possible poor showing by Joe Biden, the best-polling candidate nationally, are seen in the Bloomberg campaign as a boon to its candidate’s chances.
The former New York City mayor has spent over $300 million out of his own pocket on advertising since entering the race in November, dwarfing spending of other candidates.
“I still can’t figure out what happened,” Bloomberg told a crowd in Detroit on Tuesday regarding the caucus. “More than any other candidate, we have the momentum.”
The Iowa Democratic Party said it would announce a portion of the results by Tuesday evening.
“We are going to release the majority of results that we have by 4 p.m. today,” said state party chair Tony Price in a conference call with reporters. Price noted that party officials are traveling to over 1,600 caucus precincts “to make sure we have all of the documented information in place.”