A new study from the Nielsen Company helps explain how Gov. Jon Corzine (D-NJ) has been catching up with his Republican opponent Chris Christie, and also how Bob McDonnell and Mike Bloomberg have been maintaining leads in the Virginia and New York City races: Seriously outspending their opponents on advertising.
Between June 3 and September 20, Corzine ran a whopping 4,806 TV ads, compared to only 1,393 from Christie, a ratio of 3.45 to 1. Interestingly, Corzine massively out-advertised Christie in July by a margin of about 17 to 1, with Christie closing the gap to 2.26 to 1 in the period since then. It was in that earlier period when Corzine had some of his worst numbers, and yet he’s been catching up in the polls in the later period:
The reason for the discrepancy could be that voters in New Jersey don’t pay very close attention until the final several weeks of the election — thus Corzine was unable to really break through with his attacks. On the other hand, he probably would have been doing even worse if not for the ads.
The study also shows that Bob McDonnell has out-advertised Creigh Deeds in the Virginia gubernatorial race, by 4,382 to Deeds’ 3,986:
As Deeds mentioned at the Politico/ABC candidate forum Tuesday night, he was unable to go on TV for two months after he won his nomination, because he had spent through his treasury in his come-from-behind primary win. During that time, McDonnell was able to monopolize the political airwaves, and grab on to a lead. Deeds has been advertising more than McDonnell in the past two months, but so far he hasn’t been able to break through.
And finally, we have Mike Bloomberg’s advertising advantage over Bill Thompson. These numbers speak for themselves:
Nobody has really expected Bloomberg to lose this thing. But he’s clearly been taking no chances in a Democratic city.
