As before, the gold standard source for monitoring Presidential campaign TV ad spending remains the data provided by CMAG/Kantar Media on a weekly basis. CMAG/Kantar Media is like the Nielsen Ratings for campaign TV. A full accounting for our purposes is provided by the Associated Press (AP) wire service and found here.
The data was last updated on November 8, Election Day to include all six weeks covered by Trump’s promise.
We offer a final expression of thanks to CMAG/Kantar Media for patiently and carefully tracking all the data and the media outlets around the. A true service to American Democracy and the literacy of America’s voters, for those who would pay attention.
The original post about campaign TV advertising was prompted by Trump’s glorious promise to flood the airwaves with his popular message with $100 million in the last six week of the campaign.
This is the fourth and last examination of this one specific financial promise by Trump to his supporters, with a concrete number, objective records to monitor his performance, and finally attached to a fixed time deadline, so rare in Trump affairs. The man is truly a Master of the Verbal Slide-away, Credit where credit is due.
So, how did Promise Master Trump do in Week 6 and for his overall performance?
Chart of Final Broken Promises (Week 6: October 30-November 5)
The following chart is a complete summary of CMAG/Kantar Media data for both campaigns for the last six weeks, week by week. It gives total TV ad spending (network, cable, and regional networks) in millions of dollars spent, and number of ads purchased. I have also added a cost per ad comparison.
Here goes. Remember Trump’s great challenge announcement on September 23 was that he would spend at least $16.6 million per week on TV for the rest of the campaign.
Did Trump keep his promise to his small donors for Week 6 by itself. Yes, he finally did, and with a fair sized cushion to boot (about $4 million extra for the last gasp).
Trump’s final broken promises count on TV support for his Movement finishes at only 5 out f 6 attempts (a modest 83% untruthful ratio).
See the latest chart below.
Is there good news? Yes, there is, on a financial level. Trump did increase his ad spending again by 30% (matching Week 4 percent increase ) to $20.4 million and the number of ads run by a healthy 30%, an increase of 4,500 ads during the week. His cost per ad was stable at $1,088 per showing, an increase of just over 2% week over week, while Clinton’s ad cost was $992 per showing for the same period. This likely reflects better early ad reservation planning by the Democrats, and perhaps some shift in the number of ads run in lower cost media markets.
So, for Trump on Trump internal performance metrics, he did noticeably better during Week 6. Compared to the opposition however, his performance continued to lag badly. In total ad spending, Trump trailed in one week by a $36 million (equivalent to two weeks worth of Trump effort), and the Democrats ran three times more ads than Trump, a total of almost 40,000 more individual ad showings in the last week
As for Trump’s cumulative performance during the entire six week challenge, we have the final exam cumulative results on the state of his financial promise keeping.
Over the whole 6 week period, Trump supervised a $114 million deficit versus Democrats in total TV ad spending, which included playing 108,000 fewer total ads in that time. That’s a serious underperformance compared to his public promise during the most critical time in the campaign.
Did Trump ultimately make up the difference, and redeem his ledge to small donors, for the six weeks? The clear dollar for dollar, no-spin answer is no. He failed to provide $30 million during the challenge that he had pledged to his supporters in September. Trump’s claim was unfulfilled and proven false.
As far as Trump’s cumulative picture for the entire General Election campaign season since August 7 goes, the Democrats tripled his performance on TV media communication. For comparison sake, the original chart from August 7 through November 5 is given just below.
Trump Ads in Three Super-Critical Rust Belt States
How did Trump do in the critical Battleground states where the electoral votes and the crux of the election contest were played out? Since the Election was held on November 8, we now have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight to shine a light on a state level comparison.
With respect to electoral votes, the 2016 election outcome depended most critically on six Blue State Flippers from 2012 (WI, MI, WI, OH, FL, and IA). The other 44 U.S. states voted the same way they did four years ago. Trump took all six Flippers.
Looking at the electoral votes that each state represents, Ohio, Florida, and Iowa combined, even when added to a retained Red North Carolina, still left Trump short of 270 votes, and out of the White House for 2017. It is fair to say that the three Rust Belt Iron Bar states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania were the key to his majority electoral vote total, despite the fact he lost the overall nationwide people’s vote by a million votes or more. (Still counting about 4 million votes in very dark blue California, where Trump is receiving about 32% of the state’s vote). The U.S. popular vote totals will not matter in 2016.
Final Week Campaign TV Spending by State (Rust Belt Iron Bar Added: WI, MI, PA)
Here is a map of the campaign spending strategy by state. Final week TV ads were run in a total of 18 states: 15 duking it out by both campaigns, and Clinton alone in Nebraska, Missouri, and Indiana. One could wonder why her campaign would bother to spend not real money in those Red states in the last week of the campaign. Money to burn perhaps. There were no serious attempts to dedicate candidate personal appearance time to those states after the convention.
Let’s stick with the battles joined in the newly documented three super-critical Rust Belt Iron Bar states.. See the chart below.
Here Trump’s TV media strategy becomes a little less opaque. He didn’t advertise in any of the three states until the first week in October, with a tepid toe dip in Pennsylvania only ($50 thousand). He didn’t advertise at all in either Wisconsin or Michigan until the week of October 9-15, four weeks out. From then on he made Wisconsin a modest but persistent target, increasing his ad effort week after week in steady fashion, ultimately spending almost $2 million in the state.
Clinton was very late to respond, spending nothing until the second week out, and then a massive waste of nearly $3 million after October 30, in just the last week. Since Trump won by a slim margin (about 27,000 votes out of 3 million, less than 1%), his ad investment in Wisconsin could be called the Deliberate Deal of the Month. The only discrepancy is that Comey’s first, unfounded October surprise letter was released on Friday October 28, dropping a stink bomb in the election proceedings.
Presumably, the Trump campaign had no advance knowledge of this interference to come to guide their Wisconsin ad strategy, as this would be campaign rigging of the highest order, and we can also see that $3 million didn’t touch the kind of damage unleashed in the last week, or any campaign time. We don’t know how much difference the first Comey letter, and then his subsequent Emily Litella-like “never mind” withdrawal on Sunday November 6, actually made in Wisconsin, but it surely thumbed the scale for Trump, at least a bit. An unanswerable question to ponder in future.
For Michigan, Trump did not participate in TV advertising until the very last week, with a respectable ad buy of $600 thousand, again after the fist Comey letter. Up to that time Clinton had invested nothing in Michigan, and spent more than $2 million to no avail.
Pennsylvania is the only one of the three Iron Bar states which followed the pattern of the campaign Battleground states engagements. Both campaigns advertised heavily for the last month, and the Democrats outspent the Republicans by a bit more than 3:1, the average margin throughout the TV ad contests.
In retrospect, perhaps what is most interesting, is that Trump spent 10% ($8.6 million) of his entire nationwide campaign TV budget ($90 million) in just these three states alone during the last month, each of which was part of the 1992 onward Blue Wall, unlike the other Battleground states.
Trump’s Broken Financial Promise to His Supporters
In the end, the Democrats massive TV advertising advantage was overcome, in terms of electoral college votes, by Trump and his supporters. As we have seen, the overwhelming proportion of all TV ad dollars was spent in only 15 states. Whether a different distribution of those resources would have caused a significant alteration in the result is unknown and unknowable. The media strategy each candidate employed was their own, and different in emphasis.
But that is not the issue in focus here. The question is what about the quality of Trump’s freely undertaken and unforced promise to his supporters in September. He was under no duress.
As children we were taught the ideal is to always tell the truth. As adults most of us have a more nuance understanding, and we admit some shades of grey to color that injunction.
There is a hierarchy of promises that we recognize. There are solemn vows (to a wife or husband), there are sacred vows (to a religious order or vocation), there are legal obligations (under oath in a court room or proceeding, or signing a legal document). There are pledges to our fraternal organizations or social and civic clubs), there are moral obligations to our loved ones and friends, there are ethical imperatives from our religious faiths. There are promises made to work colleagues, casual agreements made with acquaintances for social events, a passing promise to a stranger, and a binding contract promise with a business partner, customer, contractor, supplier, or workman. Each of these promises may carry a variable weight and moral authority depending on the type of promise and the conditions under which it was made or given.
Where does Trump’s TV media promise to his supporters fall in this hierarchy. Trump first claimed to be self funding. That effort was laid aside when million s of dollars were contributed, largely by small donors to help him create a movement.
His September promise was most akin to a sort of verbal contract between Trump and some two million donors. They would (and did) defray much of the costs of prosecuting a national campaign; he would provide substantial funds of his own, and manage and lead the campaign to victory.
His promise to them was not serious in intent, not meant to deceive, and Trump received millions of dollars in value (campaign cash from his donors), on the strength of his reciprocal promise to them of how he would use their funds, so they could judge if he was a responsible steward for their money to change America,
So Trump did not an off-the-cuff, don’t take it seriously, I’m just talking to make me feel better kind of remark. His campaign deliberately and consciously promoted the promise for widespread media attention and approving positive comment about the seriousness and capability of his team to win.
His promise was not made under oath. He can’t be indicted or jailed for braking it. But it does carry a serious moral and ethical obligation on his part to carry in out for their benefit, and on their behalf.
In the lens of promise keeping he failed. $30 million short of $100 million promised for this specific purpose. The six week media challenge gave America, supporters and others multiple chances to observe his honesty and conduct. Six individual weekly results, and an overall assessment. How did he do? Five broken mini-contracts , then one mini-promise kept. And a failing grade, with no makeup for his original pledge.
If someone has a recurring obligation for weeks of months, and he or she fails once in while, we may overlook it if a good faith effort is made to follow the agreement. If there is a pattern of failed conduct, we consider whether our trust has been misplaced. How many non-performance items die it take t conclude someone is lying to use, being deceptive. At some point we entertain the notion of a scammer trying to take advantage of our good nature and .
Most working Americans may be fooled once. They do not look kindly on a repeat pattern of
Trump and The Electoral College A Tangled Win
Ultimately Trump won a split decision on Election Day, He won the Electoral College, but he is the only the second President in more than 125 years (since 1888) who the People didn’t choose with their popular votes, as we all expect with our “One Person, One Vote” American electoral ethic.
Trump is now at less than 46.8% of the People’s vote (and shrinking as California finalizes its count), which is unprecedented. The only other 20th or 21st Century gift recipient winner of an Electoral College majority appointment was George Bush in 2000, and he still earned 47.9% of the popular vote.
In the hurly-burly 19th Century, there were two disputed elections following close upon our Civil War. In 1888, the disputed eventual winner Benjamin Harrison managed to get 47.8% of the People’s votes. You can add Rutherford Hayes in 1876 as a man who was selected as President, having first lost the People’s vote. He polled at 47.9%. Before that, you have to go back to 1824 to find a President who didn’t win the popular vote in America. We are talking about ancient American history here.
This is not the sort of disputed political company any new President about to be sworn in wants to find himself in. Trump has garnered a tarnished honor for himself that sets the lowest popular vote standard in 192 years.
The Electoral College is an antique Back Room dealmaker, forged in the 18th century to appease powerful landed interests afraid of the popular will. You can look it up. It is a 21st century dysfunction machine, and should be fixed for our country’s sake. We all need a President who commands most of our votes, along with our respect for the office. But that is a story for another day.
American not only hates a whiner. They like a clear, undisputed, outright winner: no asterisks, no excuses, no qualifications.
Popular Vote + Electoral College Winner = America’s Real President.
Trump didn’t do it. Whatever he thinks might have happened in an alternate universe, he came up short. How does he govern for all the people now with that doubt and drag around his neck for the next four years?