Spending on political and issue ads ahead of the 2010 midterm elections is already approaching $1 billion, and one analyst predicts it's on track to reach $3 billion by November.
Ad Age has an interview with CMAG's Evan Tracey, who tracks political ad spending. Tracey said $864 million has already been spent this cycle, some $50 million more than was spent at this point in the 2008 election cycle.
"Historically, two-thirds of all election spending comes during the final 60 days, so we are on track to approach $3 billion in total spending on political and issue ads," Tracey told Ad Age.
The spending binge is being aided by self-funded candidates like Meg Whitman (R) in California and Linda McMahon (R) in Connecticut, as well as the Supreme Court's recent decision in the Citizens United case, which lifted restrictions on corporate and union spending.
Pennsylvania Democrat Joe Sestak's campaign unearthed footage of Republican Senate candidate Pat Toomey saying, "let's not tax corporations." The Sestak camp incorporated the footage into its new TV ad, which calls Toomey "Wall Street’s congressman."
Toomey’s suggestion about eliminating corporate taxes would have been popular with Club for Growth supporters, the anti-tax group he once led. But it gives Democrats more ammunition in their effort to tie him to Wall Street. Earlier this month, Democrats were circulating footage of Toomey talking about derivatives, financial contracts used by traders. This attack, however, seems more easily digestible.
The Sestak camp said the ad is up on cable and broadcast throughout the state, but it is not airing in Philadelphia.
The Democrat vying to succeed retiring Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.) released her first TV ad of the campaign Thursday, which focuses on her would-be Congressional paycheck.
In the 30-second ad, state Sen. Julie Lassa (D) says she’ll fight to cut Congress’s pay by 10 percent until they lower unemployment. She doesn’t say by how much unemployment should be lowered.
She also says she won’t accept a pay raise until the budget is balanced (members automatically receive pay raises unless they vote to freeze the increase, as they recently did for 2010-11).
According to the Lassa camp, it's a major buy that will be seen by a "majority" of voters in the seventh district. It's airing on broadcast and was produced by Tom King and Murphy Putnam.
The National Republican Congressional Committee was quick to claim that Lassa accepted a pay increase during her time in the state Legislature.
"In the state Senate, Lassa accepted a taxpayer-funded raise when 60,000 Wisconsinites lost their jobs," Tom Erickson, an NRCC spokesman, said in a statement. "If Lassa would take a bonus while thousands of Badger Staters were given pink slips, how can Wisconsin families trust this career politician to stand up for them?"
The Lassa camp disputed the claim, saying that she returned the salary increase.
"While Julie Lassa is voluntarily giving back 3 percent of her salary to taxpayers, Sean Duffy has consistently received taxpayer funded pay raises in his seven years in office," Haley Morris, a spokeswoman for Lassa, said in a statement.
Lassa, who's already been hit by TV ads by outside groups, faces Republican Sean Duffy in November.
--Updated at 12:13 p.m. and 1:33 p.m. and 8:18 p.m.
A major union this week waded into the grudge match brewing in Michigan's seventh district between Rep. Mark Schauer (D) and his 2008 foe, Tim Walberg.
The freshman Democrat took the seat from Walberg last cycle after the Republican had held it for a single term. Walberg is now running to get it back, but Schauer's labor allies are closing ranks around him.
The American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees spent $750,000 on a TV ad called "Burned Dignity" that went up on Monday in the Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo-Battle Creek media markets.
The ad notes that Walberg skipped the vote on the auto industry bailout but "sided with big oil and hedge funds — gave them tax loopholes."
"Haven't we been burned badly enough?," the announcer says in the spot.
In 2008, Schauer beat Walberg by about 7,500 votes.
In its first foray into the Colorado Senate race, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is accusing Republican Ken Buck of supporting a repeal of the 17th Amendment.
"For nearly 100 years now, we the people have picked our senators," the ad's narrator says. "But Ken Buck proposed a radically different idea. Buck said he wanted to rewrite the Constitution to let state legislators pick our senators instead of voters."
Buck is "too extreme for Colorado" the ad concludes.
Last year, Buck did tell a group of voters he thought the 17th Amendment has had "a horrendous effect" on federal government spending and expressed some support for its repeal.
But the candidate has since backtracked on that statement. Buck now says he does not support repealing the 17th Amendment. Campaign spokesman Owen Loftus said that was a position he clarified just one day after his original statement.
"The DSCC and Bennet want to talk about anything other than the Obama-Bennet record that helped push over 90,000 Coloradans to the unemployment lines and brought the nation's home sales to their lowest point in 15 years,” Buck campaign manager John Swartout said in a statement Tuesday.
The Democratic line of attack is one they will continue against Buck through the fall. According to one strategist, the national party plans to be "aggressive in defining Buck as the extremist he is."
Staten Island Republican Michael Grimm is using an endorsement from Rudy Giuliani in his latest TV ad. The former New York City mayor says Grimm "knows first-hand the destruction caused by terrorists."
The ad comes on the heels of a TV spot released Michael Allegretti, Grimm's rival for the nod to face Rep. Mike McMahon (D-N.Y.). Allegretti's spot focused on the economy, and featured several shots of downtrodden-looking residents staring forlornly at the camera.
New York's primary is Sept. 14. Grimm is considered the frontrunner, having been backed by Giuliani and other high-profile Republicans such as Sarah Palin and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
If Democrats are going to minimize their losses this fall, the party has to mobilize enough of last cycle's so-called "Obama coalition" — largely young, minority and first-time voters in 2008.
Those are all groups that are usually less likely to vote in midterm election years but will be key for Democrats in November.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is promising a robust get-out-the-vote effort this fall and is touting its start Monday with a Web video.
It features Democratic field organizers talking up their efforts in scenes from the districts of several endangered Dems in 2010, including Reps. Mary Jo Kilroy (D-Ohio) and Tom Perriello (D-Va.). Watch it here.
The committee has a series of house parties set for this week to drum up attention for Saturday's "National Day of Action." The goal is to knock on some 200,000 doors in what the committee says is the earliest it has ever started its GOTV efforts.
The DNC is also promising a $50 million effort in 2010, largely focused on field operations.
A new poll in Washington state shows Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) trailing Republican Dino Rossi, which might explain the tone of her first TV ad of the general election.
A SurveyUSA/KING-5 TV poll conducted Aug. 18-19 shows Rossi ahead of Murray 52 percent to 45 percent. And notably, Rossi leads among independents 59 to 35 percent.
The last SurveyUSA poll released earlier this month had Murray up 41 percent to 33 percent.
Meanwhile, Murray's new TV ad notes that "corporate lobbyists" held a D.C. fundraiser for Rossi, and "now Dino supports keeping tax loopholes for corporations that send our jobs over sees," the announcers say in the 30-second spot that was released Sunday. "Dino puts his lobbyist contributors ahead of our jobs, and that won't get us back to work."
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