You’re not imagining it: Nearly every campaign ad in Texas is from Bloomberg

It’s not your imagination. There’s no escape.

Just about every campaign ad you see on TV for a presidential candidate is pitching billionaire Michael Bloomberg. Nationwide, he’s spent some $450 million, and is almost single-handedly responsible for the fact that combined spending on the 2020 presidential race could break the $1 billion mark by Super Tuesday next week.

In Texas, the former New York mayor accounts for roughly 80% of the $26 million spent on TV spots tracked by Advertising Analytics, and only two other candidates have even bothered.

The media mogul’s media overload has become fodder for rivals running campaigns on a relative shoe string, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has a 30-second spot that starts with several seconds of sound and video from his ads.

“You’ve probably seen more ads for Michael Bloomberg than the rest of us running for president put together,” Warren says in the spot, running since Tuesday in a half-dozen Texas markets as part of an exceedingly modest $50,000 cable TV buy.

Rivals have accused Bloomberg of trying to buy the nomination.

Texas is one of the costliest states for statewide advertising, with big markets in Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio.

Bloomberg has bought the lion’s share of broadcast TV spots, trailed distantly by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Tom Steyer, the other billionaire in the race.

The single biggest buy: $4.3 million for a Spanish-language ad airing across the state, warning that President Donald Trump wants to eliminate Obamacare, with the tag line, “Mike Bloomberg, la fuerza para enfrentar a Trump” – the strength to face Trump.

In the Dallas market alone, Bloomberg has run more than 6,000 ads — 80% of presidential advertising, according to data published Wednesday by the Wesleyan Media Project.

Sanders accounts for 13% of presidential campaign ads on broadcast TV in Dallas, with Steyer buying the other 7%.

Bloomberg’s share is even higher in Houston – nearly 84%. In smaller markets such as Corpus Christi, Lubbock, Amarillo, Odessa/Midland, Tyler and Beaumont, his saturation is above 95%.

Bloomberg dominates airwaves in Super Tuesday battlegrounds, according to the Wesleyan Media Project, including North Carolina, Alaska, Virginia, Tennessee, Colorado and Utah.

The project, based at Wesleyan University, has identified $617 million in spending on television ads in the presidential race, plus $260 million on digital ads.

“It’s possible we reach $1 billion in ad spending before Super Tuesday,” said Erika Franklin Fowler, media project co-director.

Bloomberg’s TV outlays have topped $377 million. Steyer has spent $144 million. Sanders has spent $20 million and since January 2019, President Donald Trump has spent $17 million.