May 24, 2024 11:18 AM UTC

Primary Election TV Ad Spending is Pretty Weak Thus Far

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• by: Colorado Pols

Political campaigns have always been a fascinating mix of art and science when it comes to figuring out how to both influence and catch the attention of potential voters.

Honing a message and finding the right talking points can be a difficult process, though there are some decisions that should be easy (like not placing your candidate in the same frame as a literal horse’s ass). Figuring our your narrative is often less complicated in a Primary Election when all of the candidates are saying basically the same thing, which is largely the case in each of the four competitive Republican Primary races in Colorado congressional districts.

When it comes to deciding how to get your message in front of voters, there are only a few basic paid methods: Television, radio, digital (online), and direct mail. Television advertising is the still the gold standard for political campaigns — though probably not for much longer, with cord-cutting and other forces driving people away from a traditional television screen — and TV spending is still a decent way of assessing the relative strength of a particular political campaign.

The Primary Election is on June 25th, which means ballots will start arriving in voter’s mailboxes in about 10 days. Some campaigns may still be waiting to launch their TV buys; they may also have decided to spend limited resources on other outreach methods. For example, we know that the right-wing group Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to support candidates in CO-03 (Jeff Hurd), CO-05 (Jeff Crank), and CO-08 (Gabe-ish Evans). Yet to this point in the campaign season, AFP seems to be directing its spending on digital ads and direct mail rather than television (though it has cut at least one 30-second spot for Crank and Evans, respectively).

We’ve compiled below what we know of current TV ad spending in each of the four big congressional Primary races in Colorado, all of which are on the Republican side. We’ve also included links to the campaign ads where they have been available.

CO-03 (Western, Southern Colorado)

• Jeff “Bread Sandwich” Hurd: $74,600 for cable TV and Grand Junction network TV (Hurd has a few potential 30-second spots on his YouTube channel)
• Our American Century (IE for Lew Webb): $70,000 for cable TV (perhaps this ad?)

CO-04 (Eastern Plains, Douglas County)

• Lauren Boebert: $175,000 for cable TV
• Mike Lynch: $29,000 for cable TV (Lynch has a couple of potential 30-second spots on his YouTube page)

CO-05 (Colorado Springs)

• Dave Williams: $46,620 for cable TV and Colorado Springs network TV (Williams has a few 30-second options on his YouTube page)
• America Leads (IE for Williams): $187,200 for cable and Colorado Springs network TV
• Jeff Crank: $5,800 for cable TV

CO-08 (Northern Metro Area)

• Janak Joshi: $24,400 for cable TV (here’s that ad)
• Gabe-ish Evans: $3,550 for cable TV