By Brent Griffiths | [email protected]
A few Sen. Bernie Sanders signs still linger on Iowa City lawns. Republican campaign swag is stashed not too far away; there are still delegates to be swayed. For both parties in Iowa, a process commenced with the usual considerable amount of cameras during the state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses is not even complete.
But for Hillary Clinton, the campaign has begun.
Loyalists of the former secretary of State rendered such a decision by buying at least $5 million in advertising from a handful of the state’s top television stations, and based on public data, she is the only candidate or outside group to do so in Iowa thus far.
Clinton’s allies have anted up for TV ads in Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, and the Quad Cities. The sum is just a part of a two-pronged deluge of TV ads set to begin a day after final state Democratic primaries and caucuses and run until the party’s national convention in Philadelphia — the group is committed to laying down $90 million in seven states.
Priorities USA Action is legally known as an independent expenditure-only committee but is more commonly called a Super PAC. Those type of special interst groups allows corporations, unions, and individual donors to give unlimited amounts, which in practice can go far beyond what a candidate could legally solicit by her- or himself.
“Priorities know the campaign isn’t taking the primary for granted, but Hillary’s strong position and clear delegate lead allows us to focus on the general,” said Justin Barasky, the communications director for Priorities USA Action, a Super PAC aligned with Clinton.
The $5 million investment is just the beginning, Barasky said; much of group’s ad reservations have yet to be made public on forms filed by Iowa TV stations with the Federal Communications Commission.
The first iteration of the national buys is $20 million for spots in Iowa, Ohio, Florida, New Hampshire, Colorado, Nevada, and Virginia, a.k.a. the quadrennial swing-states whose tossup nature can rule a final verdict on who wins the White House.
Steve Passwaiter, who tracks and studies ad buys nationwide, said it was an economic boon for Priorities to lock in its purchases so early. Super PACs are not protected by federal pricing rules that ensure the lowest price for candidates.
Beyond just saving money, the early investment could foreshadow a rash of negative ads against whoever becomes the Republican nominee.
While Barasky declined to discuss what would be the tone of the ads, he hinted that the Super PAC might go on the offensive.
“Every campaign is different, but certainly our early reservations were made with an eye on holding the Republicans accountable sooner than later,” he said
While the a number of Super PAC ads before the Iowa caucuses were positive in tone, experts expect the general election to return to what has become the norm of outside groups handling a burden of negative attacks.
Typically political campaigns gloss over the summer months. But Passwaiter pointed to President Obama’s campaign decision to buy ads in the summer of 2012 as the gold standard and an example Priorities USA might emulate.
Obama spent a significant amount of money to spin Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney as a patrician indifferent to the plight of average Americans.
“Clearly, if you are going to try to position the Republican candidate as out of touch and dangerous or whatever adjective you want to use, this is the way to do it,” said Passwaiter, the senior director of business development at Kantar Media-Campaign Media Analysis Group.
The Super PAC will then supplement these summer attacks with a second buy that blankets in the same seven states in $70 million worth of spots from just after the convention until election day.
Despite his party not having a clear nominee, which makes such long-term planning difficult, long-time Iowa campaign operative Tim Albrecht was almost giddy with the Super PAC’s decision. The former spokesman for Gov. Terry Branstad said the thin margin of victory on caucus night underscores how Iowa Democrats feel about Clinton.
“Hillary Clinton is starting out so far behind that she needs to rehabilitate her image in Iowa, because Sanders supporters do not trust her,” said Albrecht, currently a public relations strategist in Des Moines. “She needs to spend $5 million just to get people to like her.”
While Clinton prevailed in the closest Democratic caucus finish in history, if history holds true, you should not read too much into those results. Then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama won just under 38 percent of the vote on caucus night. In other words ,62 percent of Democratic caucus-goers backed someone else. Yet in November, Obama won 93 percent of Iowa Democrats — according to Edison Research exit polls. And such a number does not include independent voters who stay home on caucus night and do not temporarily switch their registration but vote in the general election.
Both party operative and experts say Priorities USA’s early buy is just a sliver of what is to come.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if there is more to come; this is the first salvo in another war,” Passwaiter said.