What is the future of Bloomberg's campaign after his Super Tuesday flop?

2020 Democratic presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg clearly didn't have the Super Tuesday result he paid for, and now the future of his campaign is reportedly in question.

According to the Associated Press, the candidate plans to reassess his campaign on Wednesday, following a weak showing in Tuesday night's critical series of primary contests:

A person close to the Bloomberg campaign confirmed the deliberations. The person wasn't authorized to discuss the matter by name and requested anonymity.

Similarly, NBC News' Josh Lederman reported Tuesday night as the returns came in that Bloomberg campaign officials were "acknowledging that they're going to have to take another look once the data comes in" to "see whether there's a reason to continue with this after tomorrow."

Earlier in the evening, campaign manager Kevin Sheekey batted down the idea that the candidate would bow out on Tuesday, telling reporters "absolutely not," according to NPR. Sheekey did add, however, that "I think you make an assessment in any campaign like this after every time that there's a vote. We have not had a vote yet, so we have not had to assess."

Super Tuesday — on which 14 states held primary contests with over 1,300 convention delegates on the line — was a big part of Bloomberg's primary campaign strategy. He didn't appear on the ballot in the first four primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina, instead choosing to focus the efforts and spending of his self-funded campaign on states holding primaries this week.

Bloomberg's campaign spent over $500 million in advertising alone ahead of Tuesday's contests, and his solitary win of the night was in American Samoa at the time of this story's publication. Additionally, he spent over $18 million in the states of Virginia and North Carolina, only to get one delegate from each after former Vice President Joe Biden won in both states.

Bloomberg has previously said that he plans to stay in the primary "right to the bitter end, as long as I have a chance," and that he believes that his only path to the nomination would be a contested Democratic convention in July.

However, despite his Tuesday-night underperformance, an optimistic-sounding Bloomberg told supporters in Florida, "If I am the nominee, let me make you this promise: We will beat Donald Trump here in Florida and swing states around the country." He also said that "no matter how many delegates we win tonight, we have done something no one else thought was possible: In just three months we've gone from 1% of the polls to being a contender for the Democratic nomination for president."

Bloomberg also tweeted late Tuesday night that "we're more determined than ever to defeat Donald Trump and rebuild America."

Editor's note: The original version of this article erroneously stated that the Bloomberg campaign spent $500 billion on advertising. In fact, it spent over $500 million on advertising. We regret the error.

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