There is a force at work in political campaigns today that challenges everyone in media to do a better job selling themselves. Political Campaigns have lots of money to spend and with the added fire power of Political Action Committees and Super PACs, one has to stay on top of the trends in order to, as they say, follow the money.
Radio was a bit more front and center in the 2008 campaigns, Obama used more radio than McCain. Before Super PACs blurred the power of one campaign over the other, the perception of what a candidate was saying and what a Super PAC was shoveling, tone of a campaign was controlled by the party and the campaign.
In 2008, McCain did not understand the power of the Internet; Obama used the web like a blowtorch. In the 2012 election, Romney used the Internet wisely, but some experts believe that as the Romney ads and faux posts on Social Media appeared, the Obama base became more active and defensive, thus nullifying any advantage they might have reaped.
The money and time Romney spent on the Internet and TV did not bring up numbers with the single women, youth and ethnic voters. Whereas the media blitz from Obama was overwhelming on all fronts. The radio numbers from September 1, 2012 to November 6, 2012 are revealing:
- Barack Obama For President | Obama For America | Political Advertising | 117,978
- Mitt Romney For President | Romney For President Inc | Political Advertising | 49,948
When the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was heading for Florida, BP bought tons of radio to get the word out to local communities about what they were doing to solve the problem. They also ran lots of ads in Washington, DC to paint a better PR picture to lawmakers. Radio is a powerful tool to help massage the opinion of America. When terrible weather hits, radio is the source that people need. Again, stats on the aftermath of SANDY in the NJ, NY and CT areas are just coming in and the increase in radio usage was dramatic. Why is there a gap between what companies and communities use to get the word out and what the candidate banks on to win?
During the campaigns, Romney failed to understand that the undecided, disenfranchised and Republican leaning voters who were looking for answers consumed more radio than their liberal Democratic counterparts. According to TALKERS MAGAZINE publisher Mike Harrison, "News/talk listeners are very politically active and are more likely to vote than the audiences of any other radio format, not to mention the audiences/readerships of most other entertainment and information media. That's why news/talk radio plays such a huge role in the course of elections –– far more than its actual numbers taken on their own would suggest. Seventy-eight percent of the news/talk radio audience's eligible voters actually voted in 2010. That is off the charts when compared to national averages or the audiences of other radio formats." Mike Harrison's stats can be found here:
http://www.talkers.com/talk-radio-research-project/
While MUSIC FORMATS are excellent ways to target younger audiences, ethnic audiences and female audiences – three areas where the Romney camp did poorly. In short, what statistics show is that the Romney Campaign was late out of the gate and did not dominate radio the way OBAMA did. This might not be the only problem the campaign had, but without a doubt they missed the mark in their planning and execution.
So I ask, why wouldn't every candidate place a healthy portion of their budget on radio?
The win – loss percentage of those who used radio when running for Governor of a state, Senate and House.
In the races for SENATE, 60% of the time, when a candidate used more radio than their opponent, they won. But that is only part of the story. It is interesting to note that winners such as Dianne Feinstein of California, Bill Nelson in Florida and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, according to our research, ran no radio and won.
One of the most dramatic races was in Massachusetts where Elizabeth Warren beat Scott Brown, Warren ran 8,244 radio ads, while Scott Brown bought 8,851 spots. In Missouri with Claire McCaskill challenging Todd Akin who said some outrageous things about women's reproductive rights, McCaskill ran 2,781 spots against Akin's 73 ads. McCaskill won the election.
In Indiana where Richard Mourdock was also involved in some unfortunate verbal slips in interviews about rape, he ran 645 spots, while his opponent, Joe Donnelly ran only 120 radio spots, but still won.
The five Governor's races we monitored, once again, the candidate that ran more radio won 60% of the time. In North Carolina, there were three people running for governor there and the winner, Pat McCrory ran 1,537 radio ads. Walter Dalton ran 1,317 spots and Barbara Howe ran only 156 ads.
All data was part of a study of political campaign radio spot counts from all Media Monitors markets from January 1 to November 6, 2012. Graphs included were derived from that study.
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