Michael Bloomberg’s $11 million campaign ad set to air during the Super Bowl on Sunday makes no mention of President Trump, instead focusing on combating gun violence, one of the 2020 Democrat’s signature issues.
The ad features Texas mother Calandrian Simpson Kemp, whose son George Kemp Jr., a college football player, was shot and killed in 2013 when he was 20 years old.
“He would wake up every Saturday ready for the game. That became our life,” Kemp said in the ad. “On a Friday morning, George was shot. George didn’t survive.”
In 2006, while Bloomberg was mayor of New York City, he founded Mayors Against Illegal Guns. In 2013, the organization merged with gun control group Moms Demand Action, and the same year, Bloomberg helped launch Everytown for Gun Safety following the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
“Lives are being lost every day. It is a national crisis,” Kemp said. “I heard Mike Bloomberg speak. He’s been in this fight for so long. He heard mothers crying, so he started fighting.”
Many of Bloomberg’s national television ads have focused on Trump, which reportedly has irritated the president.
Super Bowl ads are rare purchases for presidential campaigns because of the high price tag, but Bloomberg, who is worth $60.5 billion and is the founder of a financial services company that bears his name, is self-funding his presidential bid and can afford the cost. He has spent $258 million so far on digital and television ads, according to ad-tracking firm Advertising Analytics.
“An enormous number of people watch it, but also the press writes about the ads in advance. They all know what the ads are because everybody tells them ’cause you want to get more publicity, and with all the people watching and all the extra publicity about it, it’s worth the money,” Bloomberg told late-night talk show host Jimmy Fallon on Tuesday.
Trump’s reelection campaign also bought a 60-second Super Bowl ad for $11 million.
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