ORANGEBURG, S.C. – What happens when a billionaire presidential candidate unloads millions of his own dollars into TV advertisements and other voter contact — largely unmatched by the competition — in a diverse, southern state early on the primary calendar?

Tom Steyer is about to find out in South Carolina, where he’s emerged as one of the top contenders leading up to Saturday’s “First in the South” primary.

While the California businessman remains an underdog to win the state, particularly as former Vice President Joe Biden makes a late surge, even a respectable runner-up finish could alter the paradigm for what can be achieved by deep investment, both in terms of resources and time.

“It has been one of the great treats and privileges of my life to meet people from South Carolina,” Steyer said Thursday in Orangeburg, laying it on thick before an audience of mostly older black voters, arguably the most significant Democratic voting bloc in the state.

His effort, which has included weeks on the ground in South Carolina, could have significant implications for the rest of the political calendar.

Just look to Texas, another diverse southern state early on the primary calendar where a different billionaire presidential candidate — former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg — is pouring huge sums of his own money into ads and other outreach the competition simply can’t afford.

Bloomberg, for good or ill, is not Steyer. And Texas, which hosts its primary on Super Tuesday, is not South Carolina.

But the states could nevertheless serve as the ultimate proving grounds for the two exorbitantly rich candidates, who’ve together helped scramble the Democratic race for the White House by spending on a scale never before seen at this stage in a presidential campaign.

The big question: Will Steyer or Bloomberg be anything more than spoilers, if even that?

“Dumping unprecedented amounts of money can help boost name ID,” said Brady Quirk-Garvan, a former chairman of the Charleston County Democratic Party who had backed New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker’s campaign. “But name ID doesn’t necessarily translate into votes.

“Just because people are saying your name … does that mean folks actually want to vote for you?”

Billionaire profiles

Other than their immense wealth and business backgrounds, Steyer and Bloomberg cut different profiles.

Steyer is a Californian born in New York. Bloomberg is a New Yorker born in Massachusetts. Steyer, a lifelong Democrat, led the calls to impeach President Donald Trump. Bloomberg, while now a biting Trump critic, is a former Republican who once called Trump a friend.

Steyer has never held public office. Bloomberg ran America’s largest city.

But the billionaires — in their own ways, and usually ones involving dollar signs — have succeeded in putting their rivals on the defensive, eating into polling margins and engendering bitter complaints that the duo is trying to buy the election.

In South Carolina, there’s no doubt that Steyer has voters’ attention.

While he wasn’t able to break through the noise in other early primary states, he long ago sought to corner the market on the Palmetto State. Any South Carolina Democrat who’s turned on a TV or listened to the radio or opened a mailbox has likely encountered one of his advertisements.

Steyer nearly tripled the rest of the field combined in TV and digital ad spending in South Carolina through mid-February, according to a study by the Institute for Southern Studies.

(Even more telling about that stat is that the next most prolific spender in South Carolina was Bloomberg, who isn’t even on the ballot here. His appearance on the state’s airwaves reflects a spillover from his ad push in North Carolina, which is a Super Tuesday state.)

Asked how she first became acquainted with Steyer, the Rev. Georgeann Pringle didn’t hesitate.

“TV ads,” said Pringle, 65, pastor at Good Hope AME Church in Cope, just outside of Orangeburg. “They’re very effective.”

That dynamic could bode well for Bloomberg in Texas, as well as other delegate-rich Super Tuesday states.

The former mayor has accounted for roughly 80% of the $26 million spent so far on broadcast TV spots in Texas, according to Advertising Analytics, as only Steyer and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders have attempted to break up the on-air Bloomberg barrage.

Bloomberg’s advantage could pack a heavier punch, too, since Texas has received nowhere near the level of attention the candidates have lavished on South Carolina.

But Steyer’s camp, which also hopes to get in on the action in Texas, downplays the parallels between the two billionaires, offering evidence to counter the notion that Steyer’s performance in South Carolina could be predictive of how Bloomberg will fare elsewhere.

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Not just money, but presence

Steyer and his team make the case, in particular, that his presence on the ground in South Carolina has been the most important factor.

“Tom has just invested his personal time … here, actually spending time with voters and hearing from them the issues that they care about,” Steyer campaign manager Heather Hargreaves said, arguing that the effort there will boost the candidate in Texas and other states.

Remella Duncan is a testament to that fact.

The 53-year-old became a volunteer for Steyer’s campaign after the businessman last year visited her hometown of Denmark, an out-of-the-way community in the state that has been in crisis due to problems with the local drinking water system.

“He takes time out to talk with the people,” Duncan said, recalling how Steyer had dinner with her and other concerned residents and then made a point to stay in touch.

Steyer has received criticism for how he’s won some other on-the-ground support, due to the fact that he’s put prominent state politicians on his campaign’s payroll. But his team has dismissed the critique that he’s trying to buy election, arguing they’ve been transparent about their efforts.

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In Orangeburg — an epicenter of South Carolina’s black community — Steyer appealed to voters on multiple fronts.

He talked about economic inequality, citing the need to double the minimum wage. He described himself as a “climate hawk,” calling climate change a particular threat for communities of color. He touted his support for reparations as a way to address the legacy of slavery.

Time and again he went after Trump, calling the president “evil” and “incompetent.”

“That’s why I started the ‘Need to Impeach’ movement,” Steyer said, referring to his effort to remove Trump. “There was something terribly wrong at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”

The billionaire also sought to draw contrast with some of his Democratic rivals, most notably Bloomberg. He referred to his fellow businessman as a “Republican mayor of New York” who’s “done a bunch of things that don’t square with Democratic values.”

That head-on approach, along with Steyer’s vast resources, was enough to win over Harry Dantzler, an 81-year-old retired tax preparer who lives in Orangeburg.

“It’s going to take somebody on Trump’s level to defeat him,” he said.

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With Super Tuesday fast approaching, it will be impossible for Bloomberg or any other Democratic candidate to replicate in Texas the kind of face-to-face voter contact that Steyer has enjoyed for weeks in South Carolina.

Texas is also far bigger than South Carolina, both in terms of square miles and population. And while voters in the Palmetto State are only being asked to consider the presidential race, Texas’ primary is stocked full of contests down the ballot.

So Bloomberg, in addition to his advertising avalanche, has revved up another kind of get-out-the-vote machine in the Lone Star State.

His campaign has 180 staffers working in 19 field offices in the state, including in El Paso, Houston, San Antonio, Tyler, Austin, Fort Worth and Dallas. His state director, Ashlea Graves Turner, boasted about building the “largest ground game in presidential history” in Texas.

“We want to come in number one,” she said during a recent call with Texas reporters.

But it still remains unclear if either billionaire will see their gambits pay off.

Consider Violet Lucas, a 54-year-old who lives in Georgetown, along the state’s coast. She attended back-to-back rallies on Wednesday by Steyer and Biden, who’s made a point to jab at the businessman as he’s started to rise in the polls.

Despite being a big Steyer fan, she decided during the short walk between the two events that Biden’s experience was paramount.

“This is where I needed to be,” she said upon arriving at the former vice president’s rally. “He’s what we need for the change that we need.”