Biggest 2016 Advertisers Have Little to Show in Polls So Far
It could be the Donald Trump effect, but other candidates without big ad budgets behind them are doing just fine.
Jeb Bush speaks during the North Texas Presidential Forum in Plano, Texas, on Oct. 18, 2015.
Photographer: Laura Buckman/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
The top six Republican presidential campaign advertisers, all independent political action committees that can raise and spend unlimited sums of money, have little to show for what they've shelled out so far. After at least $18.5 million in television commercials, the candidates they're backing are among those doing the worst in the polls.
Those findings, from a Bloomberg Politics analysis of broadcast advertising data, raise questions about the return on investment so far for the mega-donors mostly responsible for super-PAC financing, while also suggesting that long-held truisms of campaigning might be weakening in the face of new technology.