Yesterday’s Campaigns Today: GOP Lags Far Behind Dems in Presidential Digital Independent Expenditures
or, Is 2016 Finally Going to be the “Television Election”?
In the US this year, experts predict digital advertising will finally surpass TV ad spending. But, despite the large number of stories about digital technology revolutionizing politics over the last few years, campaigns have been extraordinarily slow to move their advertising dollars to where the audiences are, and still spend disproportionately on TV ads.
While campaigns are adapting far more slowly than they should, one wonders whether the super PACs spend their money more like a comparable commercial marketer would. A quick look at the FEC data for the Iowa Caucuses and New Hampshire primary suggests a mixed bag, at best.
Independent expenditures (IEs) supporting and opposing the Democratic candidates filed through January 24 are 32.3% digital which certainly compares favorably to 2014, but the GOP-side is far behind at only 5%.
Some Caveats on the Data and Methodology
FEC.gov is a wonderful thing. Since a lot of political spending must be disclosed, we have a great (although imperfect) window into both campaign donations and how those donations are spent. I’d also recommend that you check out ProPublica’s FEC Itemizer if you want to learn more.
Unfortunately, the descriptions of how that money is spent leave quite a bit to be desired — and it can sometimes be difficult to determine whether an expenditure labeled as “MEDIA BUY” includes any digital, or if “PRINTING” is for direct mail, literature for field organizers, or (seriously) billboards.
For the purposes of this piece, I downloaded all the IE filings for the presidential campaign in New Hampshire and Iowa through January 24, 2016, and coded them for type of expense into categories like “DIGITAL”, “FIELD”, “MAIL”, “TV”, etc.
What I Learned.
Well, I learned a few things by summarizing the data, the most interesting of which is that IEs supporting or opposing the Democrats are FAR more heavily weighted toward a balanced mix of spending between digital and TV, and the money spent for and against GOP candidates is far less digitally focused. There are a lot of different reasons for this, including the heavy use of direct mail fundraising by GOP-aligned super PACs, unclear descriptions of the purpose of the payments by GOP super PACs, and the different audiences each party is looking for.
Specifically, even though the GOP super PACs are far behind on digital spending when supporting or opposing GOP candidates, a heavy amount of spending opposing Hillary Clinton by GOP super PACs is 29% digital. This may indicate a (mistaken) bias that only Democrats can be successfully targeted digitally, or may simply be the result of TV time being hard to come by in these states late in the election. Considering anti-Clinton ads are likely to be targeted to GOP voters, I suspect it’s more the latter — but always possible they think they could give Bernie a win with a little push.
Additionally, as I mentioned above, the disclosure data on the GOP side is disproportionally messy, with 44% of the spending classified as “media” or “media placement” with no indication of whether this is TV, radio, digital or a mix of all of that. If I exclude these expenditures from this analysis, the spending mix improves to 19% digital, up from the original 5%. However, I am not even remotely convinced — based on past experience with FEC expenditure reports — that this is the case, and I feel confident if a reporter were to reach out to the PACs in question (looking at you, Right to Rise, and Keep the Promise…), the mix would land somewhere between those two figures.
It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that the GOP side has a massive advantage ($5.05 million versus $317,777) in terms of the nominal dollars spent on digital in the two early states. Nor should you be surprised that super PACs have spent far more on Clinton (more than $754,000) than Sanders (just over $229,000). However, less than 10% of the money spent on Sanders is digital, whereas nearly 40% ($295,280.48) of the money spent on Clinton is digital. That’s more than all of the IE spending for or against Sanders. It is worthy of note that nearly all of the Clinton digital IE spending has hit in the last week, and is supporting her.
Moving On.
In short — despite pleas from digital campaigners and lip service to the contrary — it’s probably going to be yet another cycle where digital is the hyped as taking over campaigns, but is merely an afterthought when budgets are allocated.
Rats.
I’d love to you hear your thoughts. You can find me tweeting about online politics, whisky, and cephalopods at @SteveOlson — and if you liked this post, I’d appreciate you clicking the “recommend” button below. Thanks!
