Editor's note: Here's the third installment of the 2016 Presidential Campaign Ad Scorecard, a comprehensive view of spending across broadcast, cable and satellite TV as well as radio. The charts you see below represent a collaboration between the Ad Age Datacenter and Kantar Media's Campaign Media Analysis Group (CMAG). Some context from Ad Age's Simon Dumenco follows. --Ken Wheaton
• Today is a historic day. It is a day on which respectable(-ish) global news organizations are running stories with headlines such as "Donald Trump defends size of his penis" (CNN) and "How Donald Trump's penis is helping his quest for the White House" (The Daily Telegraph). Since size apparently matters this election season, we direct your attention to Donald Trump's relatively small ad spending. He's at No. 8 in our chart; among the major candidates, only somnambulant quasi-dropout Ben Carson ranks lower. This, of course, is because Mr. Trump constantly says outrageous things that the media breathlessly reports on, saving him from having to spend as much on proper advertising as other candidates.
More notes below the charts...
| Presidential Campaigns | Ad Spend by Candidate | Ad Spend by PACs* | Total | PACs and advocacy groups* | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jeb Bush | $4,620,417 | $75,602,270 |
$80,222,687
|
Right to Rise USA |
| 2 | Marco Rubio | $17,472,853 | $44,295,985 |
$61,768,838
|
Conservative Solutions Project; Conservative Solutions PAC; Baby Got PAC |
| 3 | Hillary Clinton | $40,151,054 | $1,213,407 |
$41,364,461
|
NARAL Pro-choice America; Priorities USA Action |
| 4 | Bernie Sanders | $39,355,380 | $95,711 |
$39,451,091
|
Communications Workers of America; Friends of the Earth Action |
| 5 | Ted Cruz | $10,968,076 | $14,515,563 |
$25,483,639
|
Courageous Conservatives PAC; Keep the Promise I and III; Lone Star Committee; Stand for Truth; Stand for Truth PAC |
| 6 | Chris Christie | $771,006 | $17,708,961 |
$18,479,967
|
America Leads |
| 7 | John Kasich | $1,415,864 | $13,401,830 |
$14,817,694
|
America Future Fund; New Day for America; New Day Independent Media Committee |
| 8 | Donald Trump | $11,510,914 | $24,780 |
$11,535,694
|
Florida for Trump; Great America PAC (formerly TrumPAC) |
| 9 | Ben Carson | $5,356,382 | $410,603 |
$5,766,985
|
Black America's PAC Action Fund; Our Children's Future; The 2016 Committee |
| 10 | Nextgen Climate Action Committee | $4,446,119 |
$4,446,119
|
Nextgen Climate Action Committee |
Spending and ad buys (future buys subject to change) for president campaigns from April 5, 2015, through March 26, 2016, as of March 2, 2016.
Pay structures differ for candidates and PACs. Candidates pay the lowest unit rate. PACs pay whatever the market will bear.
*Includes political action committees and advocacy groups.
Source: Ad Age analysis of data from Kantar Media's CMAG. Includes PAC spending.
• No. 10 on our chart is a PAC, Nextgen Climate Action Committee, that advocates for clean energy and has run ads related to the presidential campaign while refraining from explicitly backing a specific candidate. The other PACs in our chart are grouped with the specific candidates they support.
• Last week we noted that Jeb Bush had such massive PAC backing for his campaign -- and his campaign itself spent so much -- that he would likely remain No. 1 in our ranking for quite some time, even though he's dropped out of the race. But No. 2 Marco Rubio and his PAC backers have been working on closing the gap. In our last chart Mr. Rubio's combined campaign + PAC ad spend totaled $54.6 million; now it's up to $61.8 million.
• Other than Donald Trump, among the major candidates Bernie Sanders has the lowest level of support from PACs willing to spend on broadcast TV/cable/satellite/radio ads backing his bid. Together, the Communications Workers of America and Friends of the Earth Action PACs have spent approximately $95,711 on pro-Bernie ads.
