Billionaire presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg’s flurry of ads in the Super Tuesday states is paying off as he was sitting on top of two news polls out today.
Bloomberg is now tied with Sen. Bernie Sanders in the commonwealth of Virginia, with both candidates earning 22 percent, according to a new survey from Monmouth University.
The former New York City mayor has the top spot to himself in Oklahoma, another state where voters head to the polls on March 3.
A poll from CHS & Associates shows Bloomberg with 18 percent support, compared to Sanders’ 17 percent.
Another poll in Delegate rich Florida last week found Bloomberg leading with 27 percent support, an increase from 17.3% in the same poll taken last month.
The state polls were released on the same day that a national poll propelled Bloomberg onto the Democratic debate stage for the first time since he announced his bid for president in late November 2019.
No sooner had the new polling results been released than President Trump tweeted: ‘What Mini Mike is doing is nothing less than a large scale illegal campaign contribution.
‘…Mini is illegality buying the Democratic Nomination,’ the president continued, to which Bloomberg responded ‘Why do you want to run against Bernie so badly?’
…..Mini is illegally buying the Democrat Nomination. They are taking it away from Bernie again. Mini Mike, Major Party Nominations are not for sale! Good luck in the debate tomorrow night and remember, no standing on boxes!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 18, 2020
The 78-year-old hopeful, who has splurged $300 million of his fortune into television ads so far, qualified for the Wednesday night Las Vegas debate after receiving 19 percent nationally in a NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist survey, which showed him in second place behind Sanders.
Bloomberg already has a target on his back from the other candidates – especially Sanders, who’s the rising frontrunner, and Biden, who was supposed to be the frontrunner and is trying to shake off poor performances in Iowa and New Hampshire.
A senior official for Bloomberg’s campaign told reporters in a conference call today that only three candidates have a viable path to the nomination: Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump and Bloomberg.
‘And of that bunch,’ said Bloomberg states director Dan Kanninen, ‘only Mike Bloomberg has a chance to beat Donald Trump in the fall election.’
Sanders and Biden have attacked Bloomberg in recent days, with Sanders bringing up Bloomberg’s ‘racist’ stop and frisk policy as New York City mayor and Biden referencing ‘the way he talked about Obama.’
His campaign said that it was seeing a ‘groundswell of support across the country’ and that qualifying for Wednesday’s debate ‘is the latest sign that Mike’s plan and ability to defeat Donald Trump is resonating with more Americans.’
‘Mike is looking forward to joining the other Democratic candidates on stage and making the case for why he’s the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump and unite the country,’ Bloomberg campaign manager Kevin Sheekey said in a statement.
But the primetime event will be a stark departure from Bloomberg’s highly choreographed campaign.
Although he’s campaigned in more than two dozen states, Bloomberg does not take questions from voters and delivers a standard stump speech that lasts less than 15 minutes, often reading from a teleprompter.
Bloomberg is likely to face far more direct fire in the debate.
‘We are expecting that he is going to have a lot of attention on him – he’s going to be attacked,’ a Bloomberg official told Politico Monday night, pointing out that the last time the ex-mayor participated in a political debate was in 2009.
His own team, Politico reported, fears that a not-so-hot performance alongside Democratic candidates who have been debating for months could snuff out some of his polling gains, which have come from the onslaught of TV ads he’s purchased in Super Tuesday states.
Bloomberg has been practicing, having his aides play the Democratic candidates.
For instance Bloomberg aide Howard Wolfson, who worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign, has stood in for Sanders during debate prep, modeling his version after ‘Statler and Waldorf,’ the two cranky characters from the Muppets.