As Dena Chandler reviewed the schedule for her monthly Democratic party meeting in Madison county, Georgia, one notice stood out to her. The group would be hearing from a Mike Bloomberg campaign field organizer, which seemed strange to the 25-year-long resident of the tiny town of Carlton.

Not a single party meeting Chandler, 68, had attended had seen any representatives, let alone candidates, of presidential elections. Carlton, which has a few hundred residents, is a rectangular strip of land with more Baptist churches than restaurants deep in the woods of east Georgia.

Georgia, like a number of other so-called perennial battleground states, is seeing a huge influx of dollars towards full-time staff, ads and office from the self-funding billionaire candidate Bloomberg has ploughed more than half a billion dollars into his campaign.

With a virtually open-ended budget, his field operatives are able to reach Democratic voters other candidates might not have the resources to court: places just like Carlton. Armed with said budget, and a laser focus on Super Tuesday ambitions, Bloomberg has shot towards the top of a number of polls after waiting out the months-long campaigns in Iowa and New Hampshire like his Democratic counterparts.

There are plans to open a total of eight field offices in Georgia, says Howard Franklin, senior adviser to Bloomberg in the state.

A few, like the one in DeKalb county, where the largest chunk of registered Democrats reside in Georgia, have already opened. It’s lined with Bloomberg 2020 signs along the window’s edges. On-the ground staff across the state now number more than 75 a month before the state’s primary.

Other states not accustomed to attention, such as Mississippi, are also catching the former New York mayor’s attention. He made a visit to the state in early December and has hired 22 full-time staffers in the state and opened three offices. Bloomberg has also visited Alabama, a Super Tuesday state, rarely a top stumping spot for Democrats early in the race, twice already. He has also opened four field officers and hired 30 staff, according to the campaign.

In Georgia, Bloomberg has received endorsements from state Democratic heavyweight Lucy McBath, to whose campaign the former mayor has donated. An Atlanta councilwoman switched her support to Bloomberg from the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren.

He has joined former Georgia gubernatorial Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams at events in Atlanta, having been a staunch supporter of her political races and donating $5m to her Fair Fight 2020 initiative, according to a contribution disclosure form.

On a recent appearance on ABC’s The View, she defended Bloomberg’s spending, saying: “Every person is allowed to run and should run the race that they think they should run, and Mike Bloomberg has chosen to use his finances. Other people are using their dog, their charisma, their whatever.”

Michael Bloomberg, he’s smart, he has something on the ball, you know, and he’s not taking things for granted Dena Chandler

Franklin says the events won’t stop any time soon. “We literally had probably a half dozen events this past weekend. We had a weekend of action with events on Saturday and Sunday in four or five different communities all across the state.”

Camerona Blunt, an Atlanta resident, has seen evidence of the Bloomberg campaign expansion across the city in signs popping up in yards and a relative asking her if she would like to attend his events. “He seems like he’s kind of in it for the wrong reasons and he kind of represents everything that is wrong in politics,” Blunt, 25, says.

Chandler agrees with that point.

“I was like, sharpening my blade, you know,” she says. Chandler readied herself to ask the field organizer about the former New York City mayor’s stop-and-frisk policies. Though she is undecided, she wasn’t leaning towards Bloomberg. In recent days, the 69-year-old had watched a documentary about the Central Park Five and how Bloomberg had slowed down their payment after they were released from prison.

“Long story short, I was definitely gonna tackle the Bloomberg person on that,” Chandler says with a laugh. “And then it turns out to be this lovely middle-aged black woman from Washington DC.”

Chandler and the other members sat through a presentation about Bloomberg’s campaign, though none of the assembled were supporters. No one signed up to canvass for the former mayor in the red, Republican-leaning county. During the meeting, the visitor told Chandler and the others she was assigned to eight counties in Georgia. She had never put so many miles on her car, she told those assembled at the senior center in the county seat up in Danville.

“She was fired up about Michael Bloomberg,” Chandler recalls.

Trying to describe the rarity of a field organizer coming to their local event, Chandler uses the word amazed three times in a row. “I was amazed. I was amazed first that we had any kind of field organizer coming from any presidential candidate, and second that it was Michael Bloomberg. I was just amazed,” her voice spikes on the last word.

It might have made a difference for this particular politically savvy, longtime Democrat in rural Georgia who had no intention of voting for Bloomberg before that night’s meeting. She had been leaning towards putting her support behind Joe Biden, even though her progressive friends kept telling her he was too moderate and wouldn’t get anything done.

After the visit from Bloomberg’s campaign, Chandler says Bloomberg might have a chance in winning her vote. “You know, I might [vote for Bloomberg] because I thought it was very smart of him,” she admits of his sending someone to speak to her group, adding: “It made me think that Michael Bloomberg, he’s smart, he has something on the ball, you know, and he’s not taking things for granted.”

• This article was amended on 6 March 2020 to improve the phrasing regarding Mike Bloomberg’s donations to Lucy McBath’s campaign.