There are a lot of ways to spend $19 million. Buying TV ads in a presidential race you have close to zero chance of winning probably shouldn't be one of them.
Billionaire philanthropist Tom Steyer has dumped tons of his own money into the 2020 Democratic presidential race, coming in second to only former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in terms of spending on TV and Facebook ads. But unlike Bloomberg, Steyer has failed to gain more than an ounce of momentum after all was spent and done — a fact that was glaringly obvious after his sixth place finish in Tuesday's New Hampshire primaries.
Steyer spent $19.2 million on TV and radio ads leading up the New Hampshire's vote, NBC News reports, and earned just over 10,000 votes. That's about $1,850 spent on each vote.
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Reason to Believe, a PAC supporting former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, meanwhile spent about $1,430 for every one of Patrick's 1,258 votes — and unlike Steyer, Patrick dropped out of the race immediately after that count was in.
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