Michael Bloomberg Plans To Spend $100 Million To Help Joe Biden Defeat Donald Trump In Florida
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has vowed to spend $100 million to help Joe Biden defeat U.S. President Donald Trump in Florida, The Washington Post reported. The Sunshine State’s 29 highly coveted electoral votes could be the advantage the Democrat needs to defeat the 45th president in November.
According to FiveThirtyEight, Biden has the slightest of slight advantages in polling in Florida, leading his opponent by between two and five percentage points. In most polls, that’s within the margin of error, effectively making the state a statistical dead heat.
Trump is keen to repeat his 2016 Florida victory when he won the state by just 1.2 percent over his then-rival, Hillary Clinton. To that end, he’s reportedly planned to put up tens of millions of dollars of his own money to win the state.
Bloomberg, who has vowed to use his own money to help his former rival, has reportedly decided to match Trump’s spending tit-for-tat and invest up to $100 million of his own money to the same end. Specifically, he and his advisers reportedly determined that narrowly focusing on Florida would be the best way he could help Biden.
“Mike Bloomberg is committed to helping defeat Trump, and that is going to happen in the battleground states. Mike’s substantial investment in Florida, in addition to his contributions to the DNC and to voter protection and restoration efforts this cycle, will mean Democrats and the Biden campaign can invest even more heavily in other key states like Pennsylvania, which will be critical to a Biden victory,” Bloomberg adviser Kevin Sheekey told CNN.
Similarly, Sheekey noted that, with Bloomberg investing his money in Florida, that frees up Democratic money that would otherwise be spent there to be used in other states whose electoral votes are in play, such as Pennsylvania.
Florida Democrat Ted Deutch is glad to have Bloomberg’s money spent on Biden, although he noted that the former Democratic candidate for president will have to make sure he reaches a wide array of Florida’s communities.
“I’m glad that Mike Bloomberg recognized this and is prepared to make an investment to make sure that every one of those communities will be aware of the importance of this election,” Deutch said.
Bloomberg’s approach is twofold. First, he intends to spend the bulk of his money on television ads that will air in both English and Spanish. Second, he’s hoping that enough Floridians will take advantage of the state’s early voting system such that a Democratic victory there would be apparent almost as soon as the polls close.
