Harris Is Here: What Does Her New Candidacy Hold For Radio?

Earlier this month, Radio Ink discussed the possibilities for radio and its political revenue should President Biden bow out of the election. With that as our reality now, we again reached out to Silver Oak Political President Steve Passwaiter to discuss the new path forward as Vice President Kamala Harris prepares to make her bid for the Oval Office.

Radio Ink: Let’s talk fundraising. When we last talked, it was about the revenue impact on radio if Biden dropped out. It came down to a question of who had the best fundraising hopes because it takes money to run ads. Now we know it’s Kamala Harris, and she’s been talking about her record, rapid, grassroots fundraising. How long do you see this spike continuing and how do you see her overall fundraising hopes in the long term compared to Biden?

Steve Passwaiter: The donors had pretty much said until Biden got out of the race that they were, you know, their checkbooks were closed. Now that he’s out, I would imagine that she’s not only going to get grassroots support, but you’ll also see major donor support. So I don’t think she’s going to lack money coming down the stretch of the campaign, but she’s going to need it.

This is like a new product launch here. She’s going to have to remake herself and reintroduce herself to a lot of people, and it’s probably going to take a fair amount of ads to get that done.

And this is happening at a time when avails are going to start to get really tight in all the places where these guys want to go. I think folks who serve stations that serve the Hispanic and African American communities should really be working diligently to try to make sure that they get heard in all of this. If you need to reach these two voter groups successfully, you really can’t rely entirely on television to do that. You’d need to put audio in there because of the way these folks over-index in use of radio. It’s a point that’s just going to have to be made over and over again.

And there will automatically be more use of radio after Labor Day because try buying television in Montana right now. Try buying television in Philadelphia right now. And it’s going to get progressively worse over the remainder of the election. And this is generally when people will tend to put radio to work for that reason because television is just getting incredibly, stupidly expensive because of that artificial rate inflation that happens because they’re still selling the same amount of inventory, but they’re selling a smaller audience.

If you were trying to buy a million impressions two years ago and you did it by buying 100 spots, how many do you have to buy now? 150? 160? So it artificially inflates rates because of the supply and demand, but it reaches fewer and fewer people. And when it gets to a point where it’s so expensive it just doesn’t make sense to buy it anymore.

It’s a great place for radio to be able to kind of scoop in and take up some decent shares of what’s left.

Radio Ink: You mentioned this is now a Democratic party relaunch, so that will shift their advertising push earlier than it would have been had Biden stayed in. But what about on the Republican side? Will we see an early push as they retool their message to face off against Harris?

Steve Passwaiter: The Republicans, from what I hear, already suspected that this was coming. After watching this unfold since the debate, it was, I think, pretty obvious it was heading in a direction where Biden was not going to be the Democratic nominee.

I saw one ad that ran Sunday in Phoenix that was done not by Trump’s campaign, but by a PAC that supports him. They had already, by Sunday afternoon, changed their creative around to focus on Kamala Harris and not on Joe Biden. So I would imagine the Trump campaign is ready to address that with a fair amount of cash on hand.

Now, whether they try to time that around the Democratic Convention or not, it might be a better policy just to stay quiet for now. There really isn’t much presidential advertising up at all at the moment. I think Biden’s campaign canceled around $50,000 worth of ads this week.

Radio Ink: So, looking at traditional presidential election ad pacing, we typically get more ads in September. In an unprecedented election, what does an unprecedented ad schedule look like beyond this immediate window?

Steve Passwaiter: Well, again, they will probably have to launch sooner because you’ve got early voting coming up starting in early September. In the past, you would have waited and then gone after Labor Day. Now, you’re probably going to push back into August so that you can get the message out to the voters. And Kamala Harris will have the money to do it.

She’s raised roughly $100 million on her own and then, because she was part of the Biden/Harris campaign, the reasoning is that the $90 million or so that Biden still had on hand would go to her automatically. Of course, the Trump campaign has filed an appeal with the Federal Election Commission saying, “Wait a minute, she’s not the official nominee yet. So how does she get access to the money that he had?” We’ll see how that plays out, but she’s raised $100 million already. Add that $90 million, she’s almost got $200 million in the bank.

Radio Ink: Let me ask you this, because the FCC just made it official that they fully intend to press this AI disclosure rule for political ads on radio and TV. They’re moving forward on the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, to the chagrin and ire of Republicans. Have you seen anything that would suggest the effect that’s going to have – one way or the other – on where advertising money goes now?

Steve Passwaiter: Obviously, we’re all worried about the deep fakes and their use in politics, but so far what I’ve heard is that the deep fakes are so bad that nobody’s mistaking them. They’ve been very easy to catch so far. Now that may get more complicated as time goes along here, but maybe that time isn’t this election. That’s actually the next.

People have their eyes out for this and are looking at ads to make sure that it is what it’s supposed to be. So it seems like there’s enough confidence in the ad community that if you’re trying to sneak something by somebody, the quality is not good enough. We’ll see. This stuff, where it is today and where it could be six months to a year from now, is moving very quickly.

Radio Ink: One more realm of interest with all the political upheaval – the AM for Every Vehicle Act. The clock is ticking to get this passed in a Congress that is getting huge issues thrown its way almost daily. Given your knowledge, what are radio’s best hopes to get this through?

Steve Passwaiter: The need to pass a federal budget could prove a problem here. Having lived here in DC for as long as I have, when this budget stuff comes they’re worried about social security and national parks and all this kind of stuff. Putting that in the mix for an election that’s going to happen less than 40 days later? The budget is going to take a pretty big priority.

Then now you’ve got a lame duck President. Is he willing to fall on his sword for something because he doesn’t have to run for reelection? It’s just it’s like everything else political – we are in uncharted territory

Logically, they say, “Yes, we should pass this legislation to keep AM radio in cars.” We should also pass a federal budget that isn’t just kicking the can down the road 60 days. And I’m afraid that’s where this is going to go, by the way. And the Biden-Harris swap ain’t gonna help.

Radio Ink: Whether it’s a short-term or long-term budget, do you think that there’s a decent chance that legislation as popular and bipartisan as the AM Act could end up attached to that in some way and get passed?

Steve Passwaiter: Honestly, I don’t know. I can’t tell you one way or the other, whether this thing gets passed or whether it gets delayed. I’m sure the legal folks at the NAB who are trying to push this act through have a better idea, but sitting here as a citizen trying to observe the actions of this legislature, I can’t tell you.

I just know that these budget negotiations just tend to suck all the oxygen out of the room. It’s the only thing these guys can focus on. And they’re going on August recess now without having anything happen, which, again, is not unusual. These guys always wait until the absolute last moment to get this stuff done. Where AM radio lands in all of this when we’re trying to fund the Pentagon and have major commitments with Social Security and all this… I don’t know whether they’ll say, “We all agree on this, so let’s slide this in.”

Every day, we’re finding ourselves in places we haven’t been before.

NAB has released new PSAs asking radio listeners to contact their member of Congress by texting AM to 52886, urging them to support legislation that ensures AM radio remains in cars. Get them for your station here.