It is now just less than a year before Americans go to the polls to select the next President of the United States, and we don’t even know yet who will be running on the Republican side. But that is not preventing the advertising air wars to start on TV.
Republicans running for the nomination have to deal with one another, but regardless of who they are and who they perceive as their major in-party opponent, they are united in their opposition to incumbent Barack Obama, and some of the candidates are taking aim at Obama in TV messaging.
Meanwhile, unaffiliated political action committees that have not necessarily picked a Republican candidate to back have no problem focusing on Obama, and have plenty of money available to do so. Significant cash is said to be flowing, according to the Associated Press, with at least $13M spent already over the last six months, according to a study by Kantar Media.
Obama and the Democrats do not yet know who their opponent will be, but that is not stopping them from focusing on Mitt Romney, who is apparently thought to be the eventual winner of the Republican nod.
The Democratic National Committee has been running ads in key swing states and the District of Columbia focusing on instances where Romney has taken diametrically-opposed positions on certain controversial issues. According to Politico, markets including Albuquerque NM, Raleigh-Durham NC, Columbus OH, Pittsburgh PA and Milwaukee WI have been targeted for the DNC effort.
The current activity is expected to be a mere warm-up to a banner $3B political spend year, which should easily eclipse the $2.1B Kantar says was spent in 2008.
