It’s hard to avoid thinking of Bloomberg’s bid as a kind of political science experiment — a test of whether an elderly, extraordinarily wealthy ex-Republican can run a competitive campaign almost entirely on the basis of his own advertising and a big, generously paid staff. That experiment will play out across the country this week, when Bloomberg will finally appear on the ballot after a bizarre campaign in which he entered the race late, skipped the four early states and focused instead on winning the trove of delegates that await on Super Tuesday.

And California is, in many ways, the maximal test of Bloomberg’s strategy. He’s invested a lot in other big Super Tuesday states like Texas, but California is the state where his dollars should carry him the furthest, because its media markets are so expensive and the state’s large, diverse population makes it hard to set up an effective ground game.

His spending spree has certainly gotten him somewhere in California. Bloomberg is now polling around 13 percent in California, according to our average, up from 4 percent in January. But Californians also love to tell you about the self-funded candidates who have tried — and failed — to spend their way into public office. Take Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, Michael Huffington or Al Checchi. After this Tuesday, we’ll know whether Bloomberg will join that inglorious pantheon or whether California’s unexpected contribution to the Democratic nomination process is the elevation of a self-funded billionaire’s candidacy.

Right now, it seems like Bloomberg will finish in third or fourth place even though he has spent tens of millions of dollars in the state. But after seeing Bloomberg’s swanky office, I wanted to find out how ordinary Californians were feeling about his campaign. After spending several days talking to voters across Los Angeles, one thing became clear: Bloomberg’s spending has bought him notoriety, but hasn’t translated into widespread enthusiasm.

Bernie Sanders still has a large lead in the California primary, but after the South Carolina primary it has shrunk significantly due to a 7-point bump for Joe Biden since Point Blank Political’s last survey. Sanders’ 33.9-percent vote-share is largely unchanged since PBP’s pre-South Carolina poll, but Biden’s support has increased from 14 percent to 21.6 percent after his victory in South Carolina. This is the third California poll Point Blank Political has conducted in the last week; over the last week Joe Biden has seen a 10-point increase following the debates and South Carolina. All other candidates’ support was largely unchanged, except for Pete Buttigieg who’s support dropped 3 percent in the waning hours of his now suspended campaign. The data was collected during the 24-hour period from the evening of February 29th, just as Biden declared victory in South Carolina, to the evening of March 1st, just as Buttigieg was suspending his campaign. The sample size was 1220 and the margin of error is 4.1 percent (95-percent confidence interval).

The results were weighted by gender, race, age, and education using a Random Iterative Model. The model’s weighting efficiency was 45 percent. The weighting efficiency was primarily driven downward by the raw sample being tilted towards those with a higher education, and slightly tilted towards white voters. RIM models correct for this by appropriately weighting groups that are under or overrepresented in the sample. Population estimates for the demographics were obtained through a combination of third-party provided voter-file data and exit polls.

A final Emerson College Polling/Nexstar South Carolina poll finds former Vice President Joe Biden at 41%, Senator Bernie Sanders at 25%, and former Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Businessman Tom Steyer tied at 11% each. Senators Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren are at 6% and 5% respectively, with Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard at 2%.

The South Carolina Emerson College/Nexstar poll was conducted February 26-February 27, 2020. The sample for the Democratic Primary consisted of registered Democratic, Independent and Republican very likely voters, n=550, with a Credibility Interval (CI) similar to a poll’s margin of error (MOE) of +/- 4.1 percentage points. The data sets were weighted based on gender, age, ethnicity, party, education, region, and mode based on 2016 turnout model. It is important to remember that subsets based on gender, age, party breakdown, ethnicity and region carry with them higher margins of error, as the sample size is reduced. Data was collected using an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system of landlines only (n=275), cell phones (n=93) and online panel provided by MTurk (n=182).

The poll had 650 respondents, with a mixed survey methodology of telephone respondents, online and online panel voters. It was conducted by a professional polling firm of voters statewide from Feb. 17-25. The survey has a margin of error of plus-minus 3.8%, and a 95% confidence level for the results.

Voters in the poll were asked: "If the election were held today, for whom would you vote?"

- Joe Biden 35%
- Tom Steyer 17%
- Bernie Sanders 13%
- Elizabeth Warren 8%
- Pete Buttigieg 8%
- Amy Klobuchar 4%
- Tulsi Gabbard 2%
- Unsure 12%

PPP’s newest poll of Democratic primary voters in South Carolina finds it looking like a two person race, with only Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders reaching double digits in their support. Biden gets 36% to 21% for Sanders, with Elizabeth Warren at 8%, Pete Buttigieg and Tom Steyer at 7%, Tulsi Gabbard at 6%, and Amy Klobuchar at 3% rounding out the field.

Other recent polls have found Steyer’s support in the 15-20% range. If he has indeed collapsed, as our poll seems to suggest, it appears his former supporters are making their way to Biden and helping him to open a bigger lead in the state. The key to Biden’s success continues to be strong support from African Americans- he gets 50% to 21% for Sanders, with no one else polling above 6%.

The South Carolina numbers show the difficulty Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, and even Elizabeth Warren are going to face as the Democratic contest moves to more diverse states. The race is actually pretty close among white voters with Sanders getting 22%, Biden 20%, and Warren and Buttigieg each 15%. But Warren and Buttigieg are each at 2% with black voters, dropping their overall support into single digits. Klobuchar gets just 1% with African Americans.

Philanthropist, business leader, and three-term New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg will commit a record-breaking $1.8 billion to support undergraduate financial aid at Johns Hopkins, the university announced today, the largest-ever single contribution to a U.S. college or university.

"This historic gift reflects Mike Bloomberg's deep belief in the transformative power of higher education and his insistence that it be accessible to all qualified students, regardless of financial means," Johns Hopkins University President Ronald J. Daniels wrote in a message to the university community today. "It also affirms Mike's profound devotion to this university for the role that it played in enriching his life."

Bloomberg, a 1964 Johns Hopkins graduate, announced his historic gift in a New York Times op-ed in which he identified college affordability as a national challenge.

"America is at its best when we reward people based on the quality of their work, not the size of their pocketbook," Bloomberg said. "Denying students entry to a college based on their ability to pay undermines equal opportunity. It perpetuates intergenerational poverty. And it strikes at the heart of the American dream: the idea that every person, from every community, has the chance to rise based on merit."

A pair of polls released Monday showed that many Americans don't think they are benefiting from the bustling economy, revealing weak spots for President Trump in public opinion despite strong economic growth.

A Monmouth University Poll found that more than half of Americans don't think they've been substantially helped by the strong macroeconomic trends, with 27 percent saying they haven't benefited much and another 27 percent saying they haven't benefited at all.

Just 12 percent said the strong economy has helped their family a great deal.