Billionaire Bloomberg to spend $100 million in Florida to help Biden

NEW YORK, (Reuters) - Michael Bloomberg, who spent $1 billion of his own money on a failed 2020 presidential bid, will inject at least $100 million to help Democrat Joe Biden’s campaign against President Donald Trump in Florida.

The billionaire’s decision comes at a critical moment in the final 51 days of the race, with polls showing a close race in the battleground state and no financial advantage for the sitting president as voting gets under way later this month.

Trump’s initial financial supremacy over former Vice President Biden evaporated after the Republican’s campaign spent freely and Democratic fundraising surged once the party’s divisive primary ended.

“Mike Bloomberg is committed to helping defeat Trump, and that is going to happen in the battleground states,” said Bloomberg adviser Kevin Sheekey, who added that the ex-New York City mayor’s spending “will mean Democrats and the Biden campaign can invest even more heavily in other key states like Pennsylvania, which will be critical to a Biden victory.”

Even before Bloomberg’s spending, both campaigns were expecting Florida to be the most expensive state in which to campaign. It will be the biggest prize among competitive states on Election Day, offering 29 of the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win.

In-state voting by mail in Florida starts on Sept. 24, and Biden is planning his first in-person visit to Florida of the general election season on Tuesday.

Trump won the state by 113,000 votes in his victorious 2016 election, or 1.2 percentage points. He has since adopted the state as his residence and visits regularly.

Recent polls have shown Biden with a very slim margin there, gaining ground with older voters but trailing previous Democrats’ performance with Latinos. People over 65 years old make up one in five of the state’s population and Latinos make up one in four.

Trump’s re-election campaign and the Republican National Committee on Wednesday said they raised a combined $210 million in August, falling far short of Biden’s record-breaking haul of $364.5 million for the month that included both party’s televised conventions.