Warren targets Bloomberg in new campaign ad airing in Super Tuesday states
Sen. Elizabeth Warren released a new campaign ad Tuesday, hitting Michael Bloomberg in the states that vote on Super Tuesday and attacking the billionaire for his campaign spending and past support of a Republican incumbent whom Warren ousted for her Senate seat.
The Warren attack ad comes ahead of the critical March 3 contests, which account for more than a third of Democratic delegates, and at a crucial moment for the Massachusetts senator to remain viable in the crowded field. Bloomberg, too, is staking his candidacy on the states that vote on Super Tuesday and beyond. He skipped the early state nominating contests and has been focusing his resources on states that vote later in the cycle and those that will be battleground states in the general election.
“You’ve probably seen more ads for Michael Bloomberg than the rest of us running for president put together. Big money is powerful but it doesn’t always win. I know that first-hand,” Warren says, narrating the ad.
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“When I ran against an incumbent Republican to take a US Senate seat away from Mitch McConnell, Bloomberg endorsed the Republican and he raised big money for him. But I beat him anyway,” she adds.
A Warren campaign aide confirmed to CNN that the ad will start to air on Tuesday in Super Tuesday states.
When Warren ran for US Senate in 2012 in Massachusetts, Bloomberg, who was mayor of New York at the time, endorsed the then-sitting senator, Republican Sen. Scott Brown. Warren ultimately defeated Brown in a contentious and costly race and has held the Senate seat since, winning reelection in 2018.
Sabrina Singh, a spokeswoman for Bloomberg, defended his spending in a statement Tuesday, saying Bloomberg “invested tens of millions of dollars to help elect House Democrats, flipping seats from red to blue across the country” and pointing out that Brown was aligned with Bloomberg’s gun safety advocacy group on a concealed carry bill.
Though a lifelong Democrat, Bloomberg won election as a Republican candidate for New York mayor in 2001 and was reelected twice. During his second term, Bloomberg switched parties and became an independent. He re-registered as a Democrat in 2018.
Bloomberg has spent millions on ads which has propelled him in the national polls and onto the debate stage, leading Warren, and other candidates, to accuse Bloomberg of buying the election.
During the last presidential debate in Nevada, Warren eviscerated Bloomberg for his past defense of stop-and-frisk policing policy, his alleged comments about women and reports that dozens of women who left his company had signed nondisclosure agreements, barring them from publicly discussing their experiences.
After three nominating contests in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, Sen. Bernie Sanders is leading in the delegate count, while Warren has eight pledged delegates and Bloomberg has none, according to a CNN tally.
