Tom Steyer essentially spent $37,000 for every word he spoke in Tuesday's debate
Tom Steyer, your billionaire is showing.
So far in the 2020 campaign he once promised not to enter, Steyer has contributed $47 million to his own cause. But when you stack that up against just how many words the mega-rich philanthropist got into Tuesday night's Democratic primary debate, it doesn't really go a long way.
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Of course, Steyer's actual money has largely gone into TV ads, and far more so than any of his closest rivals. He's run a hefty 53,310 ads on national and broadcast television, while his advertising runner-up, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, has run 1,672.
Yet in the polls, Steyer is still pretty much at the bottom of the pack. He's averaging a 1.4 percent showing across Democratic primary surveys, per RealClearPolitics, meaning he's spent about $33.6 million on each percentage point he pulled from his fellow contenders.
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