Bloomberg Spent More Than $100 Million Most Expensive Self-Financed Campaign

Mayor Mike Bloomberg was re-elected yesterday for a third term as Mayor of New York, but the big news may be how small his margin of victory was, after Bloomberg spent more then $100 million in the most expensive self-financed campaign in American history.

Bloomberg, after a controversial move to remove his city's term limits, spent the massive sums of his own money to defeat the rather nondescript Democratic contender Bill Thompson, and as a New Yorker I can attest to the constant barrage of election mailers that clogged our mailboxes every single day, as well as radio/TV ads, robocalls and volunteers ringing doorbells.

But even after that huge expenditure of over $100 million against a much lesser known opponent, Bloomberg still only eked out a victory by a few percentage points. Estimates are that Bloomberg spent over $150 per vote, where Thompson spent about $13. Hard to say Bloomberg has much of a mandate with these results, and it has to raise questions about the role of big money in our electoral system, but in the end I suppose a win is still a win.

Bloomberg Spent More Than $100 Million Most Expensive Self-Financed Campaign
nytimes

Michael R. Bloomberg, the Wall Street mogul whose fortune catapulted him into New York's City Hall, has set another staggering financial record: He has now spent more of his own money than any other individual in United States history in the pursuit of public office...

Bloomberg Spent More Than $100 Million Most Expensive Self-Financed Campaign