vision 2020

Watch Trump and Bloomberg’s Dueling Super Bowl Ads

You can’t avoid them. Photo: Chesnot/Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

President Trump and mega-spending Democrat Michael Bloomberg will run 60 seconds worth of commercials during the Super Bowl on Sunday, thus ruining tens of millions of people’s chance of simply “sticking to sports” at their watch parties. Viewers can at least brace themselves for what’s to come, though. The Trump campaign debuted its first ad by texting it to supporters on Thursday morning, while Bloomberg’s spot bowed on YouTube.

Trump’s first ad, a 30-second spot, is a straightforward bit of rousing sound and imagery that hits familiar presidential reelection themes. “Under President Trump, America is stronger, safer, and more prosperous than ever before,” the commercial’s narrator intones.

Bloomberg’s ad, on the other hand, centers around an issue — gun violence — on which the former New York City mayor has distinguished himself over the years. And its protagonist is, notably, a black woman — a demographic that everyone except Joe Biden has struggled to reach.

A minute of Super Bowl airtime costs about $10 million, which amounts to pocket change for both the free-spending Trump campaign and for Bloomberg, who has poured more than $270 million into ads so far. Though viewing numbers were down last year — 98.2 million people watched compared to a high of 1114.4 million in 2015 — the game still offers an unparalleled opportunity to reach a huge mass of Americans who would probably rather watch Clydesdale horses than politicians during its commercial breaks.

Watch Trump and Bloomberg’s Dueling Super Bowl Ads