Just as in other Super Tuesday states, Michael Bloomberg is spending lavishly to get on the airwaves here — so far paying nearly $34 million to advertise on television across the state, including roughly $1.8 million on Spanish-language stations, according to Advertising Analytics.

His money is by far eclipsing other candidates who remain focused elsewhere. Only the other billionaire in the race, Tom Steyer, has come anywhere close, spending nearly $15 million since last summer. Mr. Sanders’s campaign has spent roughly $3 million on television in California so far, and has said it plans to spend over $2.5 million more, spread between California and Texas, another delegate-rich Super Tuesday state. (None of the other top candidates have advertised on television so far.)

But the attention goes beyond the airwaves. The Sanders and Bloomberg campaigns are testing the theory that California is not a place that can be organized with foot soldiers.

So far, Mr. Bloomberg has 220 staff members throughout the state, a number his campaign expects to grow to 800 by the end of the month. Mr. Sanders’s campaign, which has operated several offices throughout the state, has about 90 organizers.

Though longtime political operatives in the state dismiss the notion that reaching out to individual voters is effective in a statewide election, the Sanders campaign boasts of knocking on 400,000 doors and making 3.5 million phone calls in California in the last year.

Both the Sanders and Bloomberg campaigns are specifically targeting the Inland Empire and Central Valley, two of the only regions in the state that still send Republicans to Congress. While Mr. Bloomberg’s supporters believe he can attract moderate voters from the area, Mr. Sanders’s staff is focusing on voters who backed Barack Obama and then switched to Donald J. Trump in those regions — especially white working-class men.

“Riverside is our Des Moines,” said Anna Bahr, a California spokeswoman for the Sanders campaign, describing efforts in the Inland Empire city.