With the Iowa caucus now in the books, Media Monitors has released new radio spot numbers in the primary races in both Iowa and New Hampshire. In the three markets: Des Moines, Quad Cities, IA, and Omaha, NE (includes Council Bluffs, IA), that Media Monitors focused on, spots for Carly Fiorina’s super PAC, CARLY for America, top the list at 1,435.
In the graph below, when the candidate’s name is in parentheses it means a super PAC bought the spots, not the candidate.
Coming in #2 was Bernie Sanders with 955 spots and Hillary Clinton was #3 with 771 spots. Ted Cruz ran 727 spots as a candidate, with a little help from his Pacs Courageous Conservatives with 79 and Keep The Promise with 238 spots, giving him a grand total of 1,044 ads, which when taken together, would put him at #2. Donald Trump, with no Super PAC support, ran 509 spots. Ben Carson aired 320 spots from his campaign, with another 312 spots from his Super PAC Our Children’s Future. Dr. Carson’s grand total would be 632, putting him 5th in overall reach. Mike Huckabee’s Super PAC, Pursuing America’s Greatness, ran 119 spots since January 1, 2016, while Marco Rubio’s Super PAC Conservative Solutions ran 74 spots for their candidate.
Media Monitors says with much of the debate about negative campaign messages, we now have a clear indication of the metrics involved. “Let’s look at the overall spots in the markets we surveyed that were run AGAINST candidates in our Iowa markets.”
And now for New Hampshire with their Primary Election coming on February 9. In the two markets Media Monitors focused on, Portsmouth-Dover, NH, and Boston, Hillary Clinton ran the most radio commercials with 2,535 spots from January 1 to 31, 2016. Bernie Sanders is right behind her with 2,211 ads. Next, and quite far back, is Donald Trump with 260 spots with Marco Rubio’s Super PAC Conservative Solutions nipping at his heels with 253 spots. Ted Cruz cleared 240 spots from his campaign, then the Super PAC Courageous Conservatives added 87 spots and the Keep The Promise PAC placed 76 spots, bringing his overall total to 403, putting him ahead of Trump and Rubio’s Super PAC.
Chris Christie ran 24 spots and his Super PAC America Leads played 233 times in our test markets for a total of 257 ads while Carly Fiorina’s Super PAC ran 220 spots.
And like what we saw in Iowa, many of the spots that have been run are spots targeted against a specific candidate. For example, there were 524 spots run by the Conservative Solutions PAC against Chris Christie. That PAC supports Marco Rubio. That same PAC ran 30 spots against Ted Cruz. The Super PAC that supports Jeb Bush, Right To Rise USA, ran 27 spots against Marco Rubio, while Jeb Bush has run zero spots since January 1 in our two focus markets.
