Billionaire Michael Bloomberg is opening a campaign office in the U.S. Virgin Islands, his staff confirmed to Axios this week.
The offshore move is a relatively rare one for a presidential campaign.
Bloomberg’s states director Dan Kanninen told Axios the candidate “believes Americans in the territories are often overlooked and have an important voice and role to play in this election.”
The U.S. Virgin Islands holds its primary on June 6, 2020.
The news is a continuation of the billionaire’s unconventional primary race strategy, virtually ignoring early voting states – Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina – and focusing on Super Tuesday states instead.
While Bloomberg has spent millions on advertising, the ad blitz has done little to influence voters. A Suffolk University/USA TODAY poll released this week showed that the vast majority of voters, 59 percent, did not find Bloomberg’s ads convincing:
Both Bloomberg and Tom Steyer (D) have spent a combined $200 million on their presidential primary efforts thus far but have failed to crack into the top tier of candidates.
The current Real Clear Politics average shows Bloomberg in fifth place with 4.9 percent and Steyer in tenth place with 1.4 percent support.