It Was Biden the Whole Time

6. Tom Steyer, Michael Bloomberg

Finally, some data on the great election-buying experiments.

Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg love data the way Donald Trump loves his dog-eared copy of the 1986 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, and they’ve produced some valuable data for campaigns going forward. What, exactly, do self-funding resources several orders of magnitude greater than that of any other candidates get you in a Democratic primary? Can gourmet food spreads at events really convert into victories? What the lavish spending got Steyer in South Carolina—where he spent tens of millions of dollars on advertisements—was 11 percent of the vote. In Super Tuesday states, where Michael Bloomberg spent hundreds of millions of dollars on advertisements, he’ll get about the same percentage of delegates, at best, once everything’s counted. So, what are the “learnings” here? Money alone is great for buying name recognition, and even soft polling leads when the actual candidates are struggling. But on Election Day, the softness of those numbers shows. Also, for the record, even though these guys tied for No. 6 on this list, Tom Steyer is better and more fun than Michael Bloomberg, probably because he has fewer billions of dollars.

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