Earlier this week Donald Trump's campaign engaged in some
insta-advertising -- quickly creating
an ad that slammed Hillary Clinton for slamming Trump supporters
with her notorious "deplorables" comment; it was slated to get
TV time in at least four battleground states: Florida, North
Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
But the reality is that, as much attention as that
rapid-response advertising effort got, spending by the Trump
campaign, together with pro-Trump PACs, continues to be a small
fraction of the spending we're seeing from the Clinton campaign
together with pro-Clinton PACs. In terms of booked TV and radio ad
time from today through election day, Team Clinton is tracking at
roughly 33 times the outlay of Team Trump.
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(Click here
for one theory: that Trump is conserving cash for an October
all-out attack-ad blowout against "Crooked Hillary.")
Meanwhile, speaking of stretching the value of ad dollars:
Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson made news on Tuesday when his
campaign announced that
he's managed to get on the ballot in all 50 states and Washington,
D.C. -- and he's achieved that milestone with very little
spending on TV and radio. Though he has been doing some advertising
(see:
"Is Gary Johnson Running for TV or for President?"), his
spending relative to Clinton and Trump is so small you can't even
see his bars in our bar chart below.
To put all this another way, of the $149,912,723 millon in
booked TV and radio spending through election day for these three
presidential candidates, $145,299,727 is being spent by the Clinton
campaign combined with pro-Clinton PACs.
Ad Age 2016 Presidential Campaign
Scorecard
Booked broadcast/cable/satellite TV + radio
spending Sept. 16 through election day by candidates and PACs
Source: Ad Age analysis of data from Kantar
Media's CMAG.
Spending and ad buys (future buys subject to change) for
presidential campaigns from Sept. 16, 2016, through Nov. 7, 2016,
as of Sept. 15, 2016.
Pay structures differ for candidates and PACs. Candidates pay the
lowest unit rate. PACs pay whatever the market will bear.