Posts Tagged ‘Campaign Spending’

What Can Brown Do For You, Massachusetts?

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

Scott Brown made history on Tuesday, becoming the first Republican to win a Massachusetts Senate seat in over thirty years. Brown won 52% of the vote, beating his opponent Martha Coakley by a margin of five percent. He gained the winning majority of the vote in 65% of the Commonwealth’s 351 precincts.

This television market map shows Brown’s margin of victory by county:
ma-dma-with-margin-of-victory

Martha Coakley spent $628,000 on broadcast and cable during the Democratic primary from 11/13-12/8. At that time, Coakley was ahead of Brown in the polls by 15%-30%. Brown first placed advertising the week of 12/30, spending $380,000 on broadcast and cable, airing positive ads such as “JFK”, “Hey, Dad”, and “Response”. For the last two weeks leading up until the election, Brown spent a total of $2.7 million, gaining an even position with Coakley in the polls. Coakley responded with negative ads on 1/7, and placed $2.1 million for the last two weeks of the election. While these negative response ads were airing, Brown skyrocketed ahead in the polls as far as a nine point lead two days before the election.

Both candidates spent the bulk of their dollars in the Boston market, each placing around $2.4 million.

This map shows Coakley’s spending by television market: ma-dma-with-coakley-spending

This map shows Brown’s spending by television market: ma-dma-with-brown-spending

This chart shows each candidate’s spending by week: Massachusetts Broadcast and Cable Spending

Several issue groups also placed advertising in Boston regarding this special election, including American Future Fund, Americans For Responsible Healthcare, Chamber of Commerce, Citizens for Strength & Security, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Employment Policies Institute, League of American Voters, League of Conservation Voters, National Republican Trust PAC, SEIU, Tea Party Express.

Unofficial election results from www.boston.com
Polling data from www.politico.com

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Evan Tracey “Political Spending Could Reach $1 BILLION in 2009″

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

To the chagrin of all TV reps Evan Tracey announced in September that political spending will reach $1 billion in 2009.  While I have not seen any numbers to refute this claim, I have to believe we are well below the billion dollar mark.  In 2008, spending was 2.5 billion, but this includes all Presidential, Congressional and Issue spending.

While the races in New Jersey and Virginia have been hotly contested, they have been more like a bump than a boom for TV stations.  Sure Mayor Bloomberg has spent good deal of money, but the lack of opposition seems to be even curbing his spending.  While political advertising is now a legitimate and growing category, spending in 2009 is not going to replace the auto industry.  2010 is another story… stay tuned.

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Did Big Money Equal Big Wins for DCCC in 2008?

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

In the 2008 election, the DCCC spent $60 million dollars to help the Democrats gain 21 seats in Congress, outspending the NRCC by a 3-1 margin. Did this financial advantage allow the DCCC to spend in more races or spend a lot in a few key races?

When looking at the highest spending races, both parties were effective in different ways. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) placed over $1 million dollars on TV advertising in 34 different races, while the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) could only match in 7 of those same races. Strangely enough, each committee won 70% of the races they placed in. Even further, the DCCC also spent $2 million or more in 9 races, losing 4 of them (including NJ-07 and NY-26), despite the NRCC not being able to match those amounts.

GOP incumbents were a major target for the DCCC, going on the offensive in 15 of the 34 races they spent a million or more, while only trying to defend 8 Democratic incumbents, while the remaining 11 were open seats. Meanwhile, the NRCC defended 6 of their incumbents in the 7 races they spent 1 million plus, successfully defending 4 of them. Using the limited resources at their disposal, the NRCC was able to defend the same amount of seats that the DCCC spent $2 to even $3 million in losing efforts in other races. While the NRCC appears to have been more efficient, the DCCC had the ability to take more chances in expensive races, but in the end both sides came away with the same winning percentage.

Republican and Democratic Winning Percentage Chart by Spending Level and Incumbency

Republican

Democratic

Victories

%

Victories

%

DCCC spent $1 mil+

11

32%

23

68%

NRCC spent $1 mil+

5

71%

2

29%

DCCC spent $2 mil+

4

44%

5

56%

Republican Incumbent

6

40%

9

60%

Democratic Incumbent

2

25%

6

75%

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McAuliffe Proves Money Isn’t Everything

Friday, June 26th, 2009

Terry McAuliffe placed a total of $2.1 million on broadcast, cable, and radio advertising in the Virginia democratic primary, outspending his opponent Creigh Deeds 2 to 1 and proving that money couldn’t disguise his Syracuse accent in the Old Dominion.

McAuliffe was up on broadcast and cable for five months in Norfolk, Richmond, and Roanoke, but he spent 50% of his overall budget in one week when he entered into all markets in Virginia from 6/1-6/9, placing a total $1.1 million in advertising.

Creigh Deeds spent a total of $1.1 million on broadcast, cable and radio advertising for the entire election. Instead of running ads for several months like his opponent did, Deeds only went up on air during the last five weeks leading up until the primary. Like McAuliffe, Deeds spent 50% of his total budget for broadcast and cable for the week of 6/1-6/9, placing $502k in all markets across the state.

McAuliffe spent 28% of his overall budget in the inefficient Washington, DC market, spending more than three times as much there than Deeds did. He placed nearly $600k in broadcast and cable during the last week, while Deeds placed $162k. Despite this spending advantage, Deeds won the market by a moderate margin.

Spending and Voting Comparison

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