The University of Wisconsin Advertising Project just released an interesting report on advertising, which reveals what Obama and McCain's campaigns think about the standing of the two candidates in this last stretch of this presidential election. As the table below shows, both teams basically believe that the final map will not be much different from the one of the 2004 election.
There are some interesting differences, however. Clearly, McCain thinks he can win in Pennsylvania, where he spent $1,612,000 just in one week, September 6-13. That is almost the double of Obama's spending during the same period. It's worth noting that there is no possible Democratic majority without the 21 electoral votes of Pennsylvania, that has supported Democratic candidates in the last 20 years.
On the other side, Obama's team shows its ambitions advertising heavily in states that have a consistently voted for Republicans in 2000 and 2004, like Colorado, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia. In the state of George Washington and James Madison, Obama spent in the first week of September $868,000, almost three times what McCain did. Here is the table:
Advertising Spending by State
McCain Obama
Colorado $553,000 $522,000
Florida $1,040,000 $1,327,000
Iowa $352,000 $148,000
Indiana None $263,000
Michigan $761,000 $954,000
Minnesota $472,000 $18,000
Missouri $353,000 $504,000
Montana None $37,000
N. Carolina $245,000 $300,000
N. Dakota $1,000 $22,000
New Hamp. $225,000 $172,000
New Mexico $214,000 $155,000
Nevada $365,000 $297,000
Ohio $812,000 $801,000
Penns. $1,612,000 $948,000
Virginia $312,000 $868,000
Wisconsin $487,000 $432,000
Spending patterns show that, no matter what the polls say, Obama's strategists are convinced that they are ahead, and that they can keep all the states Kerry won in 2004, adding to those several more states to build a sizable electoral majority.
