Political Advertising

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Biden Campaign Aims to Calm Worries About His Age

      by

      With low approval ratings and shaky public performances, the president and his team are planning an ad blitz and trying to reassure voters about his age.With stubbornly subterranean approval numbers, President Biden is taking early steps to shore up his re-election candidacy with a multipronged strategy that includes a costly advertising campaign and leveraging the powers of the bully pulpit.During his recent trip to India and Vietnam, Mr. Biden’s aides aggressively pushed back on suggestions that he has lost a step, highlighting his busy schedule as a sign of his vigor. Back home, his campaign broadcast a television ad depicting a previous overseas trip — a secret journey to Ukraine in February that the White House has trumpeted as a triumph of daring and a foreign policy tour de force.That ad comes three weeks into a $25 million battleground state campaign to promote Mr. Biden’s economic record to a public that remains skeptical of the so-called Bidenomics pitch he began making this summer.Such an ad blitz is notably early for an incumbent, in the face of concerns that Mr. Biden is struggling to maintain support among young, Black and Latino voters — key parts of the coalition that lifted him to office in 2020. While Mr. Biden’s TV ads do not frontally address a central concern raised by Democratic voters — his age — they showcase his vitality and stamina.The Ukraine ad features footage of Mr. Biden striding confidently alongside President Volodymyr Zelensky during a surprise visit to Kyiv to support the war effort. “In the middle of a war zone, Joe Biden showed the world what America is made of,” a narrator says. It ends bluntly, “Biden. President.”Kevin Munoz, a Biden campaign spokesman, said in a statement: “As Republicans fight each other in their divisive primary, we are building a campaign that is working to break through in a fragmented media environment, and speaking to the general-election audience in the battleground states that will decide next year’s election.”Democratic strategists say that many of the worries are overblown and that Mr. Biden has plenty of time to improve his numbers. Last week, Jim Messina, the campaign manager of President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign, who has become a leading voice of the don’t-panic-about-Biden chorus, circulated a 24-page presentation suggesting that the political environment was good for Democrats and calling for “bedwetters” in their ranks to relax.“Polling 15 months out is notoriously ridiculous,” Mr. Messina said in an interview. “If you were just playing poker, you would rather have Joe Biden’s cards than Donald Trump’s.”But Mr. Biden gave his Republican critics some fresh ammunition to question his physical and mental competence at a news conference in Vietnam, telling reporters at one point he was ready to go to bed. He also made a meandering and culturally awkward reference to John Wayne, who last acted in a film in 1976, nearly a half-century ago.Mr. Biden is operating in a bit of a political vacuum, as Republicans go through their primary process. Once a challenger emerges, party strategists say, Democrats will see Mr. Biden as the stronger choice and rally behind the president.Joe Trippi, a Democrat who has worked on presidential campaigns over five election cycles, said all incumbent presidents over the past decade were nearly tied with their rivals in September of the year before the election.“I’ve seen this movie over and over and over,” he said. “Every sitting president has been sitting exactly in the same place — in a dead heat.”The $25 million the campaign is spending on new ads amounts to a small fraction of what is expected to be the total cost of Mr. Biden’s campaign. In 2020, he made history by raising $1 billion for his run. This time, Mr. Biden’s initial fund-raising has been slower, impeded in part by an across-the-board decline in online contributions and the absence of liberal outrage about Mr. Trump’s presidency.Still, Mr. Biden is jumping into the political fray far earlier than his predecessors did. President Barack Obama did not begin running re-election TV ads until after Thanksgiving in 2011. His first spot was a straight-to-camera invitation to supporters to “let me know you’re in,” rather than an effort to reassure supporters about his record in office.While Mr. Obama’s approval ratings were, like Mr. Biden’s, quite low, he did not face widespread doubts within his party about whether he should seek re-election.In a different era of politics and television, the 2004 George W. Bush re-election campaign did not begin advertising until March of the election year — after John Kerry had effectively clinched the Democratic presidential nomination.Mr. Biden’s campaign says it began advertising earlier than in previous cycles because it is harder to reach broad audiences in an era of cord-cutting. TV networks are not inclined to carry prime-time presidential speeches about policy developments that are often months old, and Mr. Biden is an unsteady performer in front of a microphone. Advertisements can both be seen by a target audience and prompt coverage about them in the news media, and are one of the luxuries of being the incumbent.“Trump could easily define a narrative that kind of rewrites his own history as well as Biden’s history, and that needs to be countered,” said Teddy Goff, the digital director for Mr. Obama’s 2012 campaign.Even Mr. Biden’s public in-person events don’t always show the president in the most favorable light. He often speaks softly or holds a microphone too far from his mouth, making it difficult for the audience to follow what he is saying — and making images of fired-up supporters tougher to come by.“It was tough to hear,” Mayor Katie Rosenberg of Wausau, Wis., said after seeing Mr. Biden speak in Milwaukee last month. “The acoustics were bad. Having a rally in a factory is tough.”Ben LaBolt, the White House communications director, aggressively pushed back on social media after a headline said Mr. Biden was running “a bunker campaign.” “Presidents shall never sleep,” he wrote in one sarcastic post.Unlike the 2020 race, which was largely conducted remotely because of the pandemic, Mr. Biden’s 2024 effort will have to look more like a traditional campaign, with speeches and events that might make the president show his age.The latest chatter about Mr. Biden’s political standing followed a poll from CNN that was full of grim numbers for the president. The findings suggested that Democratic and independent voters had concerns about Mr. Biden himself, not his legislative record. Two-thirds of Democrats surveyed said they would prefer that the party nominate someone else as president. And 63 percent of Democrats said their biggest concern about Mr. Biden’s candidacy was his age, mental acuity or health.Just 4 percent of Democrats polled by CNN said their biggest concern about Mr. Biden was his handling of the economy — the subject that has been the focus of most of the campaign’s advertising so far.Amanda Litman, the executive director of Run for Something, which looks to strengthen the party’s bench by recruiting Democrats to run for local offices nationwide, said that expanding the Democratic argument beyond Mr. Biden to convey the broader stakes of the election for issues like abortion rights and climate change would be crucial.“He really has to make the campaign beyond just Joe Biden,” she says. “If it’s bigger than him, it will energize younger voters and voters of color and women.” More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Ad Wars in 3 Governor’s Races Leave Out Trump and Biden

      by

      Offering a look at both parties’ political strategies this year, the ads focus largely on issues like education, the economy, jobs and taxes, as well as local scandals and crime.Just over a year before the 2024 elections, three races for governor in Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi are offering a window into the parties’ political strategies and how they might approach statewide and congressional contests next year.Strikingly, even as former President Donald J. Trump’s indictments and President Biden’s polling struggles have consumed the national political conversation, the two men rarely show up in advertising for the three governor’s races.Since July, nearly 150 ads have been broadcast across the contests. Just one ad mentioned Mr. Trump. Three brought up Mr. Biden.Instead, the ads focus largely on issues like education, the economy, jobs and taxes, according to an analysis of ad spending data from AdImpact, a media-tracking firm. Attack ads about local scandals and controversies are frequent, and crime is the top advertising issue in the Kentucky governor’s race.Much as education was a dominant theme in Glenn Youngkin’s successful campaign for governor of Virginia in 2021, the issue remains one of the top advertising topics in both Kentucky and Louisiana, with nearly one in five ad dollars spent focusing on education over the past 60 days, according to AdImpact data.“Glenn Youngkin winning an off-year gubernatorial race in Virginia is the playbook,” said Ken Goldstein, a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco who has researched political advertising. “You go with the last playbook.”Allies of Daniel Cameron, the Republican looking to unseat Kentucky’s Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, have seized on a message about education similar to the one that helped propel Mr. Youngkin to victory.“The radical left has declared war on parents, and Andy Beshear is with them,” proclaims one ad from Kentucky Values, a group affiliated with the Republican Governors Association.Mr. Beshear has countered by praising teachers, running an ad calling them “heroes” and pledging to increase their pay and expand universal preschool.“Our teachers are heroes, and public schools are the backbones of our communities,” Mr. Beshear says in the ad, standing in the middle of a classroom.Gov. Tate Reeves of Mississippi, a Republican running for re-election, is running an ad boasting that he “got us back to school fast” during the coronavirus pandemic and criticizing other states for closing schools.In Louisiana, Jeff Landry, the Republican front-runner, is putting money behind an ad criticizing “woke politics” in schools and pledging to bring school agendas “back to basics.”No issue is getting more attention, in terms of total spending, than crime is in Kentucky. Twenty-five percent of ad spending in the state has focused on crime in the past month, according to AdImpact data.Ads from allies of Mr. Cameron warn of dangerous criminals flooding the streets as a result of a commutation program Mr. Beshear signed during the pandemic.Ads from allies of Daniel Cameron, the Republican nominee for governor of Kentucky, warn about the early release of prison inmates. School Freedom FundOf course, these three states are all deep-red bastions in the South and are not representative of the country’s broader politics.Abortion, perhaps the biggest issue in major battleground states, is barely registering in these three governor’s races; in the past 30 days, not a single campaign ad has been broadcast on the topic in Kentucky or Louisiana. In Mississippi, the only ad regarding abortion is from Brandon Presley, the Democratic nominee for governor, who has diverged from many in his party by supporting abortion restrictions.“Sometimes the family Bible is the only place you have to turn,” Mr. Presley says, sitting at a table next to a dog-eared Bible that he says is his family’s. “It’s shaped who I am and what I believe. It’s why I’m pro-life.”Given that Mr. Trump carried all three states by double digits in 2020, his absence from the airwaves shows he may not be helpful to Republican campaigns in a general election.“These campaigns are really smart and have done in-depth analytics on who their target voter is who’s actually going to move in this election, and he’s probably not helpful to that group of people,” said Michael Beach, the chief executive of Cross Screen Media, a media analytics firm.That one mention of Mr. Trump? It was in an ad from Mr. Beshear, the Democratic governor of Kentucky, boasting that he had followed the former president’s lead in releasing prison inmates early. More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Beyond the Debate, Republicans Are Deep in the 2024 Ad Wars

      by

      Many of the party’s presidential candidates have spent heavily as they try to introduce themselves to voters. Ads for Donald Trump, meanwhile, look ahead to a matchup with President Biden.Americans who don’t live in early presidential nominating states — that is to say, most Americans — might not be aware of the advertising wars already underway in the 2024 campaign. For months, Republican candidates have been on the airwaves, plugging away at themes we are likely to see more of during the party’s high-stakes first debate on Wednesday.This year, they face an unusual challenge: Former President Donald J. Trump has effectively taken on the role of an incumbent. The rest of the candidates have spent tens of millions of dollars to introduce themselves to primary voters, stake out policy positions and chart a course to the general election — only to be overshadowed by Mr. Trump.“I think of advertising as spitting out Ping-Pong balls,” said Ken Goldstein, a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco who has researched political advertising. Mr. Trump’s influence, he said, means that other candidates’ messages often do not reach voters: “There’s this big, huge wind blowing those Ping-Pongs back in their face.”The gamble for the challengers is that the wind will shift — or go away entirely.“If your opponent is winning 57 percent of the vote and you have 2, there is zero percent chance you are making that difference up with advertising,” said Lynn Vavreck, a professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles. Even in a typical election year, Dr. Vavreck said, the persuasive effects of campaign television advertisements are small, and fade fast.“That doesn’t mean everybody polling under 10 percent should stop,” Dr. Vavreck said. “They need to be seen as a candidate who’s taking it seriously. That includes advertising.”Here’s a look at some of the themes and strategies emerging in the campaign advertising for the more than a dozen Republican candidates.How are the candidates dealing with Trump?Republican candidates face an unusual challenge: Former President Donald J. Trump has effectively taken on the role of an incumbent.Christian Monterrosa for The New York TimesMany of the Republican candidates, particularly the lower-polling ones, do not address the former president at all in their ads. Others take indirect shots at him.Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and his allies are the loudest exception.In a series of acerbic ads, a super PAC supporting Mr. Christie has ripped Mr. Trump over his indictments, his electoral losses and his impeachments. In an ad that ran nationally after Mr. Christie qualified for the debate on Wednesday, the narrator goads Mr. Trump to join him onstage: “Are you a chicken, or just a loser?”Ads on New Hampshire and Iowa stations by the main super PAC backing Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida have criticized Mr. Trump elliptically — for instance, asking why the former president is attacking Republican governors rather than focusing his attention on Democrats and President Biden. (Mr. Trump, one ad concludes, “is all about himself.”) In another ad, a man covers his Trump bumper sticker with a DeSantis one.Other groups not connected to any candidate have spent millions opposing Mr. Trump.Win It Back, a super PAC that shares leadership with the Club for Growth, a conservative anti-tax group, has bought $5.6 million in ads, according to an analysis by AdImpact, a media-tracking firm. The ads including lengthy broadcast spots in Iowa and South Carolina that feature voters who once supported Mr. Trump but are now looking for a new candidate.A political action committee supporting Mr. Trump, in the meantime, has turned its attention to the general election, with a 60-second ad attacking Mr. Biden.Who is spending the most?Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and his allies have spent $46.2 million on ads, including a huge outlay on commercials planned for the weeks after Wednesday’s debate.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesThe main super PAC supporting Mr. DeSantis has spent $17 million buying television ads, while MAGA Inc, a PAC supporting Mr. Trump, has spent $21.4 million, according to the AdImpact analysis.But that doesn’t come close to the $46.2 million spent in support of Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, between his campaign and a super PAC backing him. That figure includes a huge outlay on ads planned for the weeks after Wednesday’s debate.A PAC supporting Nikki Haley has spent $8.4 million on ads — about the same amount spent on ads for Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, between his largely self-funded campaign and a super PAC supporting him. Ms. Haley’s ads include broadcast spots in New Hampshire and Iowa that draw on her experience as ambassador to the United Nations, and a clip describing her as the “surprise rock star” of the Trump administration.Perry Johnson, a businessman who has lent his own campaign $8.4 million, has spent $1.9 million on ads. One ad that ran in Illinois features him walking determinedly through a blizzard of computer-generated charts and mathematical equations, representing his love of statistics and quality standards.Many of his online ads have included a plea for donations to get him over the threshold of 40,000 donors required to participate in Wednesday’s debate. (The Republican National Committee said on Tuesday that he had not qualified.)Pleas for donors to contribute just $1 — a clear attempt at meeting the debate threshold — also featured heavily in digital ads by SOS America PAC, which is supporting Mayor Francis X. Suarez of Miami. The super PAC has spent $1.7 million on ads, the AdImpact analysis shows.What themes are emerging?Many of the candidates have appealed to anti-abortion voters in their ads.Meridith Kohut for The New York TimesBorder security, China, a touch of Ukraine, inflation, cleaning up Washington. And, of course, the culture wars.Mr. DeSantis’s super PAC has amplified his resistance to coronavirus lockdown orders, and lauds him for “pushing back against the woke left.” In a video clip in one of the ads, he says: “If you’re coming for the rights of parents, I’m standing in your way.” The group’s ads have also gone after Disney and Bud Light.Another ad from the group aims to appeal to anti-abortion voters, quoting Mr. Trump relaying criticism that the six-week abortion ban Mr. DeSantis signed in Florida was “too harsh.”The super PAC supporting Ms. Haley ran a digital ad in May that highlighted her “pro-life” voting record in South Carolina, and criticized Mr. Biden for encouraging protests after Roe v. Wade was overturned. “We need a president who unites Americans,” she says, “even on the toughest subjects.”Perhaps no candidate has made more of his opposition to abortion than former Vice President Mike Pence, and his ads have addressed this head-on. One of his longer ads focuses entirely on his anti-abortion record.Both Ms. Haley and Mr. Pence have used the phrase “the ash heap of history” in stump speeches that wind up in their ads — Ms. Haley in reference to the future of “Communist China,” and Mr. Pence in reference to the overturning of Roe.What’s the visual style of the ads?Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign ads often feature him speaking directly at the camera.Christian Monterrosa for The New York TimesSo far, most of the ads have been pretty “cut-and-paste,” as Mr. Goldstein put it. Inspiring personal stories, a few grim shots of Mr. Biden, uplifting music, a few wives offering endorsements of their husbands, adoring crowds, American flags.The entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy (total ad outlay: $334,000, plus $240,000 more from a supporting super PAC) has made a slightly different presentation. Unlike other candidates’ campaign ads, his spots do not rely on dramatic voice-overs, but feature him in a room, speaking directly at the camera.The super PAC supporting Mr. Scott tried another approach to introduce the candidate: ads featuring prospective voters speaking to the camera about the senator, as if speaking to their neighbor: “Have you seen him work a crowd?” “Did you see Tim Scott on ‘The View’?” “He will crush Joe Biden.”Who has the best Ronald Reagan cameo?Recordings of Ronald Reagan have appeared in ads for former Gov. Asa Hutchinson, Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Ramaswamy.Dirck Halstead/Getty ImagesDoes a 40-year-old endorsement count? An ad for former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas — seeking $1 donations to help him reach the debate stage — consists almost entirely of a short clip of former President Ronald Reagan, sitting at his desk in the Oval Office and addressing the camera.“If you believe in the values I believe in, there’s a man you should get to know,” Mr. Reagan says. “His name is Asa Hutchinson.”Mr. Reagan had nominated Mr. Hutchinson to serve as the United States attorney for the Western District of Arkansas. The clip appears to be from an endorsement for Mr. Hutchinson in the 1986 Senate race. (He lost to Dale Bumpers, an incumbent Democrat.)Mr. Ramaswamy invokes Mr. Reagan in a digital ad, saying the former president “led us out of our national malaise” carried over from the 1970s. Mr. Ramaswamy pledges to lead America out of its latest “national identity crisis.” More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Pro-Haley Group Plans $13 Million Ad Push in Iowa and New Hampshire

      by

      Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, has been struggling to gain traction in a crowded Republican field dominated by Donald Trump.A super PAC supporting Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign said on Tuesday that it had reserved more than $13 million in television and digital ads in Iowa and New Hampshire starting in August. The outlay is the first major advertising push in support of Ms. Haley since she became the first Republican to challenge former President Donald J. Trump this year.The group, SFA Fund Inc., is pouring $7 million into ads in Iowa and $6.2 million into ads in New Hampshire that will run over the next nine weeks. The first television ad features Ms. Haley, 51, a former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, talking tough on China at a political rally, arguing that the country’s leaders “want to cover the world in communist tyranny.”A voice-over says, “Nikki Haley: tough as nails, smart as a whip, unafraid to speak the truth.”Polls show Ms. Haley stuck in the single digits in a primary race that has been dominated by Mr. Trump.The first New York Times/Siena College poll of the 2024 campaign showed Mr. Trump with the support of 54 percent of likely Republican primary voters, while Ms. Haley trailed far behind with just 3 percent, the same level of support as former Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.Ms. Haley has until now relied on free television and press coverage that has come from her brisk clip of events and appearances in Iowa and New Hampshire, where she has spent more time campaigning than most of her rivals.In a memo published this month, Mark Harris, SFA Fund’s lead strategist, said the group was gearing up to begin “an aggressive voter contact campaign” as Ms. Haley enters the next phase of the race. “Nikki Haley understands that China’s growing influence poses a monumental threat to the United States,” Mr. Harris said in a statement announcing the ads.In Iowa, Republican campaigns have spent $31.8 million so far this year, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact. The $7 million campaign would make SFA Fund the second-largest spender in the state, behind only Mr. Scott’s Trust in the Mission PAC, or TIM PAC, which has spent more than $15.3 million. Never Back Down, a super PAC supporting Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, has spent the next-highest amount, with $3.4 million in ads.Spending in New Hampshire has totaled only $3.4 million. TIM PAC has been the largest spender there, too, having invested $1.1 million in ads.Ms. Haley raised $7.3 million through her presidential campaign and affiliated committees from April through June, a modest sum that nevertheless revealed her robust appeal to small donors. SFA Fund had $17 million in cash on hand as of the end of June. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      A ‘Leaner-Meaner’ DeSantis Campaign Faces a Reboot and a Reckoning

      by

      The campaign’s missteps and swelling costs have made donors and allies anxious. One person close to the Florida governor said he had experienced a “challenging learning curve.”Throughout the spring, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and his advisers waved off his sagging poll numbers with the simple fact that he wasn’t yet an actual candidate for president.Two months in, however, his sputtering presidential campaign is still struggling to gain traction.Allies are complaining about a lack of a coherent message about why Republican voters should choose Mr. DeSantis over former President Donald J. Trump. Early strategic fissures have emerged between his own political team and the enormous super PAC that will spend tens of millions of dollars to help him. His Tallahassee-based campaign has begun shedding some of the more than 90 workers it had hired — roughly double the Trump campaign payroll — to cut swelling costs that have included $279,000 at the Four Seasons in Miami.Now, his advisers are promising to reorient the DeSantis candidacy as an “insurgent” run and remake it into a “leaner-meaner” operation, days after the first public glimpse into his political finances showed unsustainable levels of spending — including a taste for private planes — and a fund-raising operation that was alarmingly dependent on its biggest contributors and that did not meet its expectations.One recent move that drew intense blowback, including from Republicans, was the campaign’s sharing of a bizarre video on Twitter that attacked Mr. Trump as too friendly to L.G.B.T.Q. people and showed Mr. DeSantis with lasers coming out of his eyes. The video drew a range of denunciations, with some calling it homophobic and others homoerotic before it was deleted.But it turns out to be more of a self-inflicted wound than was previously known: A DeSantis campaign aide had originally produced the video internally, passing it off to an outside supporter to post it first and making it appear as if it was generated independently, according to a person with knowledge of the incident.Mr. DeSantis has privately forecast that the now twice-indicted Mr. Trump would struggle as his legal troubles mounted, but the governor continues to poll in a distant second place nationally.Rachel Mummey for The New York TimesThe DeSantis campaign declined to comment on specific questions about its spending, the candidate’s travel and the video. The communications director, Andrew Romeo, said in a statement that Mr. DeSantis was “ready to prove the doubters wrong again and our campaign is prepared to execute on his vision for the Great American Comeback.”“The media and D.C. elites have already picked their candidates — Joe Biden and Donald Trump,” Mr. Romeo said. “Ron DeSantis has never been the favorite or the darling of the establishment, and he has won because of it every time.”Second-guessing from political donors has intensified as Mr. DeSantis traveled this week from the Hamptons to Park City, Utah, to see donors. Records show the DeSantis campaign made an $87,000 reservation at the Stein Eriksen Lodge in Utah for a retreat where donors were invited to cocktails on the deck on Saturday followed by an “investor appreciation dinner.” It’s the type of luxury location that helps explain how a candidate who has long preferred to fly by private jets burned through nearly 40 percent of every dollar he raised in his first six weeks without airing a single television ad.One senior DeSantis adviser who was supposed to oversee the campaign’s messaging on television recently departed, as the reality of a disappearing advertising budget set in. Now the governor is expected to hold smaller-scale events in early states while outsourcing some event planning to outside groups to tamp down costs. His team, for the second time in three months, is telegraphing a plan to engage more with the mainstream media he has long derided, calling it the “DeSantis is everywhere” approach.DeSantis supporters have watched anxiously as Mr. Trump has swamped the governor in coverage and outmaneuvered him in defining the contours of the race. Since his entry, Mr. DeSantis has received zero congressional endorsements. One person close to Mr. DeSantis, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about a candidate whom the person still supports, said the governor had experienced a “challenging learning curve” that has left him “a little bit jarred.”In a note to donors on Thursday, Generra Peck, the DeSantis campaign manager, cast the campaign as making tough but necessary changes, writing that it would pursue an “underdog” approach going forward.“All DeSantis needs to drive news and win this primary is a mic and a crowd,” Ms. Peck wrote.Mr. DeSantis has privately forecast that the now twice-indicted Mr. Trump would struggle as his legal troubles mounted, but the governor continues to poll in a distant second place nationally.Ms. Peck, who has never worked at a senior level on a presidential campaign but made herself a trusted confidante of Mr. DeSantis and his wife, Casey, has found herself under fire from both inside and outside a campaign that has been defined by silos, with various departments unaware of what is happening elsewhere. That the campaign did not hit expected fund-raising targets — and spent exorbitantly — caught the candidate and his wife by surprise, a person with knowledge of their reactions said.Mr. DeSantis still has time to reset. There have been no debates yet. His super PAC, which is called Never Back Down, brought in $130 million. And the first votes are nearly six months away in Iowa, where Mr. Trump has made missteps of his own.“Six months is a lifetime in politics,” said Terry Sullivan, who served as Senator Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign manager, noting that in July 2015 Jeb Bush was still ahead in some polling averages. “He has definitely burned a lot of time, but it’s been a learning process for his campaign.”Mr. DeSantis remains the only challenger to Mr. Trump polling in the double digits, and the only candidate that Mr. Trump himself treats as a serious threat.“What would concern me is if I woke up one day and Trump and his team were not attacking Never Back Down and Ron DeSantis,” said Chris Jankowski, the DeSantis super PAC’s chief executive. “That would be concerning. Other than that, we’ve got them right where we want them.”Two developments — the campaign’s failure to hit expected fund-raising targets and its exorbitant spending — caught Mr. DeSantis and his wife, Casey, by surprise, a person with knowledge of their reactions said.Kathryn Gamble for The New York TimesA memo that hints at a splitStill, time is ticking. From the start, Mr. DeSantis has been trapped between the political reality that he is an underdog compared with the former president and the desire to project himself as a fellow front-runner separated from the rest of the G.O.P. pack.Mr. DeSantis himself acknowledged in a recent interview with Fox News that his earlier higher standing was only a “sugar high” from his landslide re-election and how that victory contrasted with the 2022 losses of several Trump-backed candidates.But the campaign has increasingly been tempted to punch down at lower-polling rivals, as in a memo to donors in early July that singled out Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina as someone who would soon receive “appropriate scrutiny.”That campaign memo landed at the pro-DeSantis super PAC’s Atlanta headquarters with a thud. It seemed to rebuke the super PAC, calling into question the group’s decision to stay off the airwaves in New Hampshire and the pricey Boston market. Legally, super PACs and campaigns cannot coordinate strategy in private, so leaked memos are one way they communicate.“We will not cede New Hampshire,” read one line that appeared in boldface for extra emphasis. In a reference to Boston, the memo read, “We see no reason why more expensive markets in New Hampshire should not also be prioritized.”But the super PAC, which has studied the memo line by line, may be unmoved by the suggestions. “We’re not easily going to change our course,” said one senior official with the DeSantis super PAC who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about strategic decisions.According to a person with direct knowledge of the process, the memo, first published by NBC News, was written by Ms. Peck, but without the input or knowledge of the broader campaign leadership team, an unusual move for such a highly scrutinized document.The candidate himself soon made clear that he, too, wanted to see changes.“I can’t control” the super PAC, Mr. DeSantis said recently on Fox News, before adding some specific stage directions. “I imagine they’re going to start lighting up the airwaves pretty soon with a lot of good stuff about me, and that’s going to give us a great lift,” he said.Since then, the super PAC has not aired a positive ad about Mr. DeSantis or returned to the airwaves in New Hampshire.‘He brought over almost his entire state apparatus’From the moment Mr. DeSantis entered the race with a two-day event at the ritzy Four Seasons in Miami, his team operated on the false premise that he could campaign the same way he did as governor, when Florida’s lax campaign finance rules allowed him to collect million-dollar donations and borrow the private planes of friends at will.Mr. DeSantis raised a robust $20 million in less than six weeks. But $3 million of that is earmarked for a general election and cannot be spent now, and his spending rate averaged more than $212,000 per day.The state of the campaign’s finances could be even more bleak than the snapshot presented in public filings. Some vendors did not show up on the report at all, suggesting some bills have been delayed, which would make the books look rosier.There were also signs of a severe slowdown in his online donations. In Mr. DeSantis’s first week as a candidate, in late May, his campaign paid significantly more in fees to WinRed, the main donation-processing platform for Republicans that receives a cut of every online dollar donated, than it did in the entire month of June.In addition to the roughly 10 staff members who were let go in mid-July, two more senior advisers, Dave Abrams and Tucker Obenshain, left this month to work for an outside nonprofit that can boost Mr. DeSantis.“He brought over almost his entire state apparatus, and I think they looked at it and said we don’t need all of those people,” said Hal Lambert, a Republican donor who is raising money for the DeSantis campaign.The disclosures also exposed Mr. DeSantis’s dependence on his biggest contributors. Only 15 percent of his contributions came from donors who gave less than $200. Even more stark is that the lion’s share of his money came from donors who gave the legal maximum in the primary of $3,300.Mr. DeSantis raised a robust $20 million in less than six weeks. But his spending rate averaged more than $212,000 per day.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesThe challenge for Mr. DeSantis in relying so heavily on bigger donors is twofold: It means that he must travel the country extensively to attend fund-raisers to gather their larger checks and that those big donors cannot give to him more than once. That the governor and his wife prefer to travel by private planes adds significant costs, and cuts into the net money raised when crisscrossing the nation for fund-raisers.His report showed $179,000 in chartered plane costs, along with $483,000 to a limited liability company that was formed within days of his campaign kickoff, with the expenditure only labeled “travel.” A senior campaign official said the campaign planned to make changes to travel practices “to maximize our capabilities,” though the person would not specify what changes were coming.One way to save on air travel is to have Mr. DeSantis burrow deeper into Iowa, where officials say he may visit all 99 counties.“He is positioned to do well in Iowa,” said Bob Vander Plaats, an influential evangelical leader in the state, whose group, The Family Leader, hosted Mr. DeSantis and other candidates in Iowa for a recent forum. (Mr. DeSantis’s super PAC paid $50,000 to the group’s foundation, records show, which a super PAC official said was for a sponsorship of the event.)The DeSantis super PAC emphasized that after being overwhelmed by Mr. Trump in free media coverage and millions of dollars’ worth of attack ads, Mr. DeSantis was still standing.“Any other candidate would be bleeding on the ground,” said Kristin Davison, Never Back Down’s chief operating officer. “DeSantis,” she added, “is still No. 2.” More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Tim Scott Is Turning Heads With Donors and Early-State Voters

      by

      The South Carolina senator is gaining in early-voting states and has money, a positive message and a compelling story. Now he needs to take on the Republican front-runners.He is rising in the polls and turning heads in Iowa and New Hampshire, behind heavy spending on ads that play to voters’ appetite for a leader who is upbeat and positive in a dark political moment.He has experience, a compelling personal story and a campaign war chest that gives him staying power in a Republican primary that so far has been a two-man race. And among Republican voters, he is the candidate that everyone seems to like.Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina is perfectly positioned to seize the moment if former President Donald Trump collapses under the weight of his criminal cases or if the challenge to him from Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida evaporates.The only question is whether either moment will come.Mr. Scott’s growing popularity in early primary states has made him more of a contender in the still-young primary campaign and — in the eyes of current and potential supporters, and donors — a possible alternative to Mr. DeSantis, who is seen as an alternative to Mr. Trump.Andy Sabin, a wealthy metals magnate who switched his allegiance from Mr. DeSantis to Mr. Scott and is hosting a fund-raiser for three dozen wealthy donors in the Hamptons next month, cited his frustration with the front-runners and said he hoped that more in the donor class would join him in backing Mr. Scott. Prospective donors, Mr. Sabin said, “all want to see what he’s about.”“They’re disenchanted with Trump and DeSantis,” he said. “And the others, I’ve seen very little momentum.”Since he entered the race in May, Mr. Scott’s standing has slowly crept up in Iowa and New Hampshire. A University of New Hampshire poll of likely voters, out Tuesday, found him in third place among the state’s primary voters, with 8 percent of the vote, ahead of former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, both of whom have focused intensely on the state.He is also running third in recent Iowa polls — at around 7 percent — and a few national polls have shown him as the second choice for many supporters of Mr. Trump or Mr. DeSantis, though it comes at a time when primary voters not committing to Mr. Trump are often considering several candidates.Mr. Scott’s strength in early states has caught the eye of other potential donors, including the billionaire cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder, who met with Mr. Scott in South Carolina this month. In August, Mr. Scott will make a fund-raising swing through at least five states, including Colorado, Tennessee and Wisconsin.While he has not been as much of a presence on the campaign trail as his rivals have, Mr. Scott and his allied groups have poured considerable money into Iowa and New Hampshire, spending $32 million to run ads through January 2024 — more than any other Republican candidate or group on the airwaves, according to the tracking firm AdImpact. Mr. Scott is the only Republican contender who has booked ad time that far ahead.Mr. Scott, who has outspent his rivals on advertising in Iowa and New Hampshire, hopes to raise his national profile in next month’s first Republican debate.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesMr. Scott’s supporters say his positive campaign message and general appeal provide a contrast with the primary’s front-runners. The highest-ranking Black Republican, he is running on an only-in-America story as a candidate and a senator with roots in a low-income Charleston community.Still, though Mr. Scott has shown some momentum in the early states — including his home state — Republican voters have yet to flock to him en masse, and he is still relatively unknown nationally.A Quinnipiac University poll of voters nationwide found him tied with Mr. Christie in the primary among likely Republican voters, behind Ms. Haley and former Vice President Mike Pence, who are tied for third. And while he is well-liked in early primary states, more than half of Republican voters surveyed nationally said they did not know enough about him to have an opinion.Alex Stroman, the former executive director of the South Carolina Republican Party, acknowledged the issue but said that it was solvable. “I think that the more people are introduced to Tim Scott, that they are going to like Tim Scott,” he said. “The problem is, it is a crowded primary.”Asked during a town hall in New Hampshire on Tuesday how voters should contend with such a crowded field, Mr. Scott said he expected that “the field will dwindle pretty quickly” by the time voters cast ballots in the state’s February primary election.Mr. Scott’s campaign has been focused on a positive message and his faith. But some conservatives have said he needs to sharpen his message on key issues.Mic Smith/FR2 Associated Press, via Associated PressThe first opportunity to introduce himself to a national audience will be the Aug. 23 Republican debate. Mr. Scott’s campaign manager, Jennifer DeCasper, said recently that Mr. Scott had met the donor and polling thresholds to be on the debate stage. Mr. Scott, who raised more than $6 million in the second quarter, has more than $20 million in the bank — one of the largest war chests in the primary and enough, Ms. DeCasper maintained, to keep his campaign afloat through the Iowa caucuses and all three of the early state primaries.“At the end of the day, candidates can post any number they want,” she said. “But the name of the game is how much actual cash you have on hand that’s available for use in the Republican primary.”On Tuesday, Trust in the Mission PAC, a group supporting Mr. Scott, announced that it would spend $40 million on broadcast and digital advertising in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina — a gigantic outlay that far outpaces the spending of any other candidate in the G.O.P. field and could possibly reshape it.The PAC’s spending reflects a huge bet on increasing Mr. Scott’s profile, especially as he maintains a relatively limited presence on the campaign trail: He has relegated his time in early primary states this month to the few days of the week that he is not in the Senate. The group has already shelled out more than $7 million on advertisements through the summer; the $40 million buy will kick in beginning in September. It is also helping fund a small field operation of about a dozen canvassers in the early primary states.One challenge Mr. Scott still faces is presenting a policy message that separates him from the rest of the Republican primary field. His advertisements in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina are biographical, and some touch on national security, warning of the threat that China could pose, while others seize on cultural issues, criticizing Democrats’ policies on education and their views on race.But trying to appeal to a broad swath of Republican voters without alienating key portions of the party’s primary electorate has proved challenging.Terry Amann, an Iowa pastor who has met with most of the Republican candidates, said Mr. Scott needed to articulate a more solid policy plan to connect with the conservative evangelicals who could decide the caucuses in January. Though the senator’s conservative message and his frequent biblical allusions have endeared him to many Republican faith-based voters, Mr. Amann said, Mr. Scott has not clearly defined his stance on abortion restrictions.“If you’re going to be the candidate that stands out on faith, there are some issues that I believe are worth laying it down for, and that’s one of them,” he said. “That would be my challenge to him if he wants to step off from the rest of the pack.”With just over a month until the first debate and six months until the Iowa caucuses, Mr. Scott’s campaign still sees an opening to refine his message and consolidate more voters. Still, while he tries to surpass Mr. DeSantis, the bigger challenge will be wresting the support of more than half of Republican primary voters from Mr. Trump.“These campaigns, candidates, have to figure out what the hell they want voters to know about them,” said Dave Carney, a veteran Republican strategist in New Hampshire. Mr. Scott, because of his background, has a unique story to tell, which can get “people to listen a little bit,” Mr. Carney said. “That’s a great advantage.”But, he added, “the point isn’t just to get their interest — then you have to make the deal.”You have to sell the deal.”Ruth Igielnik More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Super PAC Backing Tim Scott Plans $40 Million Ad Campaign

      by

      The ads will give Senator Tim Scott a significant boost as he draws attention from rival campaigns in the Republican presidential race.A super PAC supporting Senator Tim Scott’s presidential campaign said on Tuesday that it was reserving $40 million in television and digital advertising from the fall through January, the largest sum booked so far for any presidential candidate and a blitz of ads that could reshape the 2024 Republican field.The group, called the Trust in the Mission PAC, or TIM PAC, said the ad buy would cover Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, Mr. Scott’s home state — the first three states that will vote in 2024 — as well as national cable channels starting in September.To put the $40 million figure in perspective, that is more money than the super PACs supporting Donald J. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida have spent so far — combined — on television in the first six months of 2023.The coming ad blitz, which follows a previously announced $7.25 million buy, will provide a significant boost for Mr. Scott. In polling, Mr. Scott has not yet broken out of the pack of Republican candidates trailing those two front-runners.But he has increasingly begun to attract the attention of the DeSantis campaign. In a memo to donors this month, the DeSantis team said it expected Mr. Scott to receive “appropriate scrutiny in the weeks ahead.”The timing of the ad reservation — days after the super PAC said it had only $15 million in cash on hand at the end of June — suggests a major donor most likely contributed a huge sum in recent days. The timing will allow the donor’s identity to remain undisclosed until early 2024.For years, one of Mr. Scott’s biggest benefactors has been Larry Ellison, the billionaire co-founder of Oracle. Mr. Ellison had already put $35 million into a different Scott-aligned super PAC, the Opportunity Matters Fund, between 2020 and 2022. A spokeswoman for Mr. Ellison did not respond to a request for comment on any pro-Scott contributions he may have made this year.Mr. Ellison attended Mr. Scott’s presidential kickoff event in May and received a shout-out from the senator onstage. “I thank God Almighty that he continues to provide me with really cool mentors,” Mr. Scott said. “One of my mentors, Larry Ellison, is with us today, and I am so thankful to have so many different mentors in the house.”Rob Collins, a Republican strategist who is the co-chair of Trust in the Mission PAC, said that Mr. Scott’s personal history — “Our family went from cotton to Congress in one lifetime,” Mr. Scott declared in his 2020 convention speech — would resonate with Republican primary voters.“Tim is the biggest threat to Joe Biden and the far left because Tim’s life story and accomplishments undermine decades of Democrat lies about America,” Mr. Collins said in a statement.The early ad buy will make Mr. Scott’s super PAC the first of the 2024 campaign to reserve television time into the fall and winter, which will lock in somewhat lower advertising rates that are likely to rise as more and more campaigns go on the airwaves. Super PACs pay more than candidates but the later they book the steeper the premium.“As prices skyrocket in the coming weeks, we will have a stable plan that will allow us to efficiently communicate our message, conduct a well-rounded campaign and better manage our cash,” Mr. Collins said.The super PAC also announced that Mr. Scott had begun a door-knocking campaign in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, an operation that includes a dozen staff members and almost 100 canvassers, a majority of whom are paid.The pro-DeSantis super PAC, Never Back Down, has reported raising $130 million in the first half of 2023 and spent nearly $15 million so far on television ads. The group has outlined plans to hire 2,600 field staff members who will focus on door-knocking across the early states. More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Fundraising Deadline for 2024 Presidential Campaigns Arrives: What to Watch

      by

      Which presidential and Senate candidates are swimming in cash? Which ones are growing desperate? That and more will become clearer on Saturday, when campaigns must file their latest federal reports.The financial landscape of the 2024 presidential race — the contest’s haves and have-nots, their momentum and desperation — will come into sharper focus on Saturday, the deadline for campaigns to file their latest reports to the Federal Election Commission.The filings, which detail fund-raising and spending from April 1 through June, will show which campaigns brought in the most hard dollars, or money raised under federal limits that is used to pay for staff, travel, events and advertising. Senate campaigns must also file by the end of Saturday, which means an early glimpse at incumbents’ fund-raising in potentially vulnerable seats.Crucially, the records will reveal which candidates are struggling to draw donor interest. For example, former Vice President Mike Pence raised just $1.2 million, two aides said on Friday, a strikingly low figure that could signal a difficult road ahead.The reports will also give a sense of small-dollar support, and which donors are maxing out their contributions to which candidates. And they will show how campaigns are spending their money, which ones have plenty of cash on hand and which ones are in danger of running dry.“The F.E.C. reports are the M.R.I. scan of a campaign,” said Mike Murphy, a veteran Republican strategist. “It’s the next-best thing to breaking into the headquarters and checking the files.”But the picture will not be complete. For one thing, super PACs, which can raise unlimited money and play an outsize role in supporting presidential candidates, do not have to file reports on their fund-raising and spending until the end of the month.The total number of donors to each campaign will not be provided in the filings, either. That figure is a vital measure for Republicans, because the party is requiring presidential candidates to have at least 40,000 unique donors to take part in the first primary debate on Aug. 23.Saturday will also be the first detailed look at President Biden’s war chest as he slowly ramps up his re-election campaign. His campaign said on Friday that along with the Democratic National Committee and a joint fund-raising committee, it had raised more than $72 million combined for the second quarter.In the same period in 2019, former President Donald J. Trump and his allies raised a total of $105 million — $54 million for Mr. Trump and his committees, and $51 million for the Republican National Committee. In 2011, former President Barack Obama raised $47 million for his campaign and $38 million for the Democratic National Committee.Saturday will also show the money taken in by candidates in competitive Senate races in West Virginia, Arizona, Montana, Nevada and Ohio, among other places.The filings for presidential candidates are pored over by competitors, who want to “get a sense of how they are applying their resources, which will give them a clue to strategies,” Mr. Murphy said. Candidates might look at how much their rivals are spending on ads and polling, for example.“The most important number is cash on hand, minus debt,” Mr. Murphy said. “You see how much financial firepower they actually have.”Several Republican presidential campaigns have previewed their fund-raising ahead of the release. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida raised $20 million in the second quarter, his campaign said this month. But the filing on Saturday will show what percentage of that amount came from contributions below $200, which is instructive to assessing the strength of his grass-roots support.Mr. Trump raised more than $35 million in the second quarter, his campaign said. That number, however, is hard to compare with Mr. DeSantis’s because Mr. Trump has raised money through a joint fund-raising committee, which allows him to solicit contributions above the $3,300 individual limit and then transfer funds to his campaign and to his leadership political action committee.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida raised $20 million in the second quarter, his campaign said this month. His filing on Saturday will show what share came from contributions below $200, a sign of grass-roots support.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesNikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, is raising money into a joint fund-raising committee, which transfers funds to her campaign and to a leadership PAC.Ms. Haley’s three committees together took in $7.3 million in contributions in the second quarter, according to filings shared with The New York Times, of which the campaign itself accounted for $4.3 million.Mr. Murphy singled out Ms. Haley as a candidate whose total earnings appeared modest, but whose cash on hand had increased from the first quarter of the year — to $9.3 million from $7.9 million across the three committees. “It shows a heartbeat,” he said. Her filings also suggest that her campaign is running a lean operation, with minimal staff, economical travel and no television ads.The Republican National Committee’s donor threshold for the first debate has shifted the calculus of many campaigns and PACs, which must focus not only on raising money but also on attracting a sufficient number of individual donors. So far, the candidates who say they have met that threshold are Mr. Trump, Mr. DeSantis, Ms. Haley, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.Nikki Haley’s three committees together took in $7.3 million in contributions in the second quarter, according to filings shared with The New York Times. Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesOn Wednesday, Mr. Scott’s campaign said he had raised $6.1 million in the second quarter. Mr. Scott entered the race in May with a head start: He had $22 million in hard dollars in his Senate campaign. His presidential campaign said it had $21 million remaining at the end of the quarter.Another Republican candidate, the wealthy entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, has not released a preview of his fund-raising numbers, but he has said he will spend $100 million of his own money on his bid. Mr. Christie, similarly, has not released his numbers.On Friday, the campaign of Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, a wealthy former software engineer, filed its quarterly report, showing that he had raised $1.5 million in contributions and that he had lent $10 million to his campaign. He had $3.6 million in cash on hand at the end of the month.The campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the environmental lawyer who is challenging Mr. Biden for the Democratic nomination, also filed its report Friday, showing more than $6.3 million in contributions and $4.5 million in cash on hand at the end of June.Terry Sullivan, a Republican strategist who ran Senator Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign, said it would be telling which candidates broadcast their total donor numbers.Another thing to watch is the “burn rate” of each campaign, Mr. Sullivan said — what candidates are spending as a share of what they have taken in, and how much they have left in the bank.Campaign accounts are vital to candidates because, unlike PACs, the funds are controlled by the campaign. Also unlike PACs, campaigns are protected by federal law that guarantees political candidates the lowest possible rate for broadcast advertising.Mr. Sullivan said that television advertising was no longer as important as so-called earned media exposure, through events, viral moments and debates. But those often cost money, too: Even on a tight budget, candidates can easily spend a quarter-million dollars a day holding events on the trail, he said.“Nobody stops running for president because they think their ideas are no longer good enough, or they’re not qualified,” Mr. Sullivan said. “People stop running for president for one reason, and one reason only: It’s because they run out of money.”Reid J. Epstein More