Democratic party candidate Tom Steyer is quitting the race after blasting through an estimated $250m of his own money without significant progress. His spendthrift advertising earned a third-place finish in South Carolina, but with rivals Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden surging — not the mention the presence of even-richer Mike Bloomberg — billionaire Steyer's campaign has no-where left to go.
None of it was enough. Steyer didn’t manage to win a single delegate to the national convention. And he was largely overshadowed by Michael Bloomberg once he entered the race — another billionaire who took a similar electoral strategy as Steyer but was better-positioned to execute it. Unlike Steyer, Bloomberg had previous experience in elective office, as New York’s mayor. Bloomberg had a bigger network of relationships in the Democratic Party — that resulted in lots of major endorsements — and significantly more wealth (an estimated $60 billion) than Steyer ($1.6 billion), allowing Bloomberg to spend a staggering amount on television commercials. And it’s still not clear that Bloomberg’s comparative advantages will do much for him either.
