Michael Bloomberg only needed three weeks to convince Democrats he can beat Trump in a general election, according to a new Insider poll

• Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg accomplished in three weeks what most other candidates took months to do: convince Democrats he could beat President Donald Trump in a general election better than his rivals.
• To help make sense of where all the 2020 candidates stand, Insider has been conducting a recurring SurveyMonkey Audience national poll for almost a year.
• The percentage of Democratic primary voters who think Bloomberg would lose to Trump was eight percentage points lower than for a generic Democrat across four polls conducted over a month.
• Among all respondents, the percentage of people who think Bloomberg would win is two percentage points higher than for a generic Democrat.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg accomplished in three weeks what most other candidates took months to do: convince Democrats he could beat President Donald Trump in a general election.

To help make sense of where all the 2020 candidates stand, Insider has been conducting a recurring SurveyMonkey Audience national poll for almost a year.

You can download every poll here, down to the individual respondent data, and see the sample size and margin of error for all four of the polls we cite here. (Read more about how the Insider 2020 Democratic primary tracker works.)

Instead of asking respondents who they would vote for if their primary election were held tomorrow, we ask respondents which candidates they would be broadly satisfied with as the Democratic nominee, and which candidates they believe could defeat Trump.

To note an important distinction, we don't poll head-to-head matchups asking voters who, for example, they would vote for in a hypothetical general election between Trump and Bloomberg. Instead, our polling asks respondents to make a judgment of who the American electorate as a whole would be most likely to vote for.

Bloomberg, who is the eighth wealthiest person in the United States with an estimated net worth of $52.4 billion, is putting to the test the question of just how far virtually unlimited funds can go in a crowded presidential primary.

Despite only officially being in the race for about a month, Bloomberg has made a huge impact in the race with well over $100 million invested in television and digital ad spending, rocketing into fifth place with 7% support in Morning Consult and 5.5% support in Real Clear Politics' Democratic primary polling average.

Across four Insider polls conducted between November 12 and December 13:

• The fraction of respondents aware of him who think he'd beat Trump improved by five percentage points
• The percentage of Democratic primary voters who think Bloomberg would lose to Trump is eight percentage points lower than for a generic Democrat.
• Among all respondents, the percentage of people who think Bloomberg would win is two percentage points higher than for a generic Democrat.
• In our two December polls, Bloomberg outperformed a generic Democratic candidate in terms of perceived ability to beat Trump both among Democratic primary voters and all voters.

The former mayor is explicitly running on electability and making a risky gambit that moderate voters will see Bloomberg as a more viable opponent to take on Trump than the current centrist frontrunner, former Vice President Joe Biden.

Bloomberg, who built a multibillion-dollar business and ran New York as mayor for eleven years, is positioning himself as Trump's exact opposite: a successful businessman with governing experience who sees himself as a unifier, not a divider.

"We now need to finish the job and ensure that Trump is defeated - but Mike is increasingly concerned that the current field of candidates is not well-positioned to do that," Bloomberg adviser Howard Wolfson told The Times and other outlets in early November.

"If Mike runs, he would offer a new choice to Democrats built on a unique record running America's biggest city, building a business from scratch and taking on some of America's toughest challenges as a high-impact philanthropist."

So far, Bloomberg's unorthodox campaign strategy of heavily relying on advertisements with no grassroots fundraising seems to be garnering encouraging results.

But there's a big catch to Bloomberg's electability-focused strategy: he isn't filing to appear on the ballot at all in the first four key primary states - Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina - and is focusing entirely on winning delegate-rich Super Tuesday states, including Texas and California.

This strategy gives Bloomberg virtually no chance of winning the nomination. He would be not only forfeiting the ability to earn any delegates at all during the first four contests, but he also would be giving up the chance to prove to Super Tuesday voters that he is a viable candidate who can actually win elections.

Read more:

Biden saying he'd only serve one term would be an Election Day risk with little reward, new Insider poll shows

The Bernie Bro is over. Introducing the Yang Bro, the Bloomberg Bro, and the Gabbard Bro.

Elizabeth Warren demands billionaire Michael Bloomberg release accusers from NDAs

The Michael Bloomberg campaign dance video mocking Pete Buttigieg was created by a comedy sketch group

.@MikeBloomberg has officially passed the $100 million mark. In total, we have tracked $100,407,009 in advertising from Bloomberg since November 25. That's an average of $3,718,778 per day. #Election2020

- Advertising Analytics (@Ad_Analytics) December 10, 2019