The presidential campaigns are already signaling where the battlegrounds are – and although one candidate is active in more locations than the other, PACs have come forward to even the score on that count.
From the Associated Press as reported by Politico, here are the top nine states so far:
* Florida
* Ohio
* Virginia
* North Carolina
* Iowa,
* Pennsylvania
* Colorado
* Nevada
* New Hampshire
And the top ten DMAs so far:
* Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News VA
* Roanoke and Lynchburg VA.
* Greensboro, High Point and Winston-Salem NC
* Columbus OH
* Raleigh-Durham NC
* Richmond-Petersburg VA.
* Cedar Rapids IA
* Charlotte, NC
* Cincinnati OH
* Des Moines IA
According to the report, the Obama campaign is active in all nine states; Romney is only in five, but Romney-supporting PACs are advertising everywhere Obama is.
Democratic ads were 70% positive, 30% negative. Republicans were almost completely opposite, 27% positive, 73% negative.
RBR-TVBR observation: It is this author’s misfortune to be within the media reach of two of the high-volume states. For those of you keeping score at home, we are officially part of the Norfolk DMA but are also served by stations in the Greenville-New Bern DMA, which is our preferred source for local television news.