Kevin Sheekey, Mike Bloomberg 2020 campaign manager, joins "Squawk Box" to discuss the campaign's spending as well as it's Big Data strategy. While Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden may be grabbing headlines before the Iowa caucuses next Monday, no 2020 candidate is spending more on the digital ad war than President Donald Trump and Democratic contender Mike Bloomberg.
The importance of the digital-ad wars in shaping the national voting map is coming into sharper focus as Bloomberg looks past the first four states holding Democratic votes next month – Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada – to instead aim for a strong showing on Super Tuesday and the general election against Trump.
Trump has spent $36 million so far on digital spending on Google and Facebook, according to ACRONYM, the ad-spending research firm, more than Biden, Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg combined. But Bloomberg is catching up quickly, and is on pace to surpass the president’s total. The former New York mayor, a billionaire who is self-funding his campaign, has already spent $34 million on digital ads on Facebook and Google.
The spending gap between the between Trump and the Democrats online underscores one of the main reasons Bloomberg decided to run. According to the Bloomberg campaign, one of Trump’s keys to victory in 2016 was his effectiveness in digital advertising and social media – a skill that his campaign have honed and expanded even further over the past four years.
“Where ‘Trump’ is really strong is in digital,” said Kevin Sheekey, Bloomberg’s campaign manager. “He has built a campaign that is probably running a decade ahead of anyone else on the Democratic side to meet voters wherever they are, and they have been very smart about it.”
But again, according to Sheekey, Bloomberg isn’t far behind Trump on this score. “Bloomberg is maybe eight years ahead. So we’re gaining ground. But he’s still ahead,” he said.
At the center of the digital strategy for both the Trump and Bloomberg campaigns is data collection – finding voters who may be receptive to a certain political message and then delivering ad content designed to win their vote.
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