Bloomberg has no delegates, but he might be far ahead

[Zorro]

The mainstream media and other Democratic presidential contenders have talked a lot about former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg’s spending on presidential campaign ads, which passed $200 million back in January. He has hired 2,100 staffers, multiples greater than every other candidate. However, neither of those numbers completely conveys the size, sophistication and effectiveness of the operation he is building.

Dan Kanninen, states director for the Bloomberg campaign, shared with me the details of the operation on Sunday. Those 2,100 staffers are spread around the country, including 800 in California (300 full-time and 500 part-time), 125 in Florida and 135 in North Carolina. They have some 125 offices, soon to increase to 150. They have offices in all 14 Super Tuesday states. They looked at the compensation for many government and political interns ($15 per hour) and decided to increase that to $17 to $18 per hour for field organizers. With their long hours, that works out to be about $6,000 per month. The thinking was that this was a reasonable wage that recognized the value these employees provided to the campaign. All employees receive health-care benefits.

This army has been forming since December, and Bloomberg has vowed to keep the infrastructure in place through Election Day. The philosophy is that the longer people are on the ground, the better they know the area, form relationships and avoid the slam that campaigns only show up for a few weeks once every four years.

The campaign looks at Super Tuesday as 165 congressional districts, each of which may require a different approach based on the delegate rules that apply there. In addition, Bloomberg is invested heavily in states following Super Tuesday, especially in critical battleground states for the fall, among them Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Bloomberg has made a separate commitment to spend $20 million to register 500,000 voters.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/10/bloomberg-has-no-delegates-he-may-be-far-ahead/

[honest.abe]

1. If Biden loses big in NV and doesnt win in SC, Bloomberg may take Super Tuesday in a very big way.

Many of Biden's supporters are on edge and ready to jump and probably think that Bloomberg is the safest place to jump to.

[DanTex]

2. Jennifer Rubin is a Republican. No surprise she's pushing Bloomberg now.

I guess she's given up on Biden.

Link to tweet

[patricia92243]

3. I love that all his employees get health care and the $15 hour

was raised to $18. $6k a month is a huge amount for them.