9.13 Myths about Campaigns

The total amount of money that a presidential campaign can spend is determined by the amount of money that it can raise—not by the (virtually unlimited) opportunities for spending money.

There are two major steps in campaign budgeting.

First, presidential campaigns and their supporters try to raise as much money as possible from all sources available to them. All serious presidential campaigns raise money nationally.

Second, after a campaign organization ascertains how much money it has available, it engages in a resource-allocation process in order to decide how to spend the money in the most advantageous way.

Today, the controlling factor in allocating resources is the state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes. Under the current system, campaigns concentrate their spending on a handful of closely divided states and ignore the remaining states. They do this because they have nothing to lose, and nothing to gain, by trying to win votes in states where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind.

For example, under the current system:

• 98% of the ad spending in 2012 was spent in 12 states (table 1.12).
• 99.75% of the ad spending in 2008 was spent in 16 states (table 1.16).

The National Popular Vote Compact would not increase the total number of dollars available from donors.

Under both the current state-by-state system and a national-popular-vote system, candidates would raise as much money as they possibly could from donors throughout the country.

However, once the money is raised, the resource-allocation process would be very different in a nationwide presidential election than under the current system. The reason is that every voter in every state and the District of Columbia would matter in a nationwide election. The available money would necessarily be allocated much more broadly than is the case today. Of course, for any given amount of available money, it would be impossible to run a campaign in every state at the same per-capita level of intensity as recent campaigns in the dozen-or-so battleground states.

Consider Ohio and Illinois in 2008. Both states had 20 electoral votes at the time. However, Ohio was a closely divided state at the time, while Illinois was a safely Democratic state. Ohio received $16,845,415 in advertising (table 1.16), whereas Illinois received only $53,896 in advertising. Ohio also received 62 of the 300 general-election campaign events (table 1.15), while Illinois received none. That is, under the current state-by-state winner-take-all system, Illinois was almost totally ignored, while Ohio received an enormous amount of attention in the general-election campaign.

In contrast, in a nationwide vote for President, it would be suicidal for a presidential campaign to ignore Illinois. Some of the available pool of money would necessarily be reallocated to Illinois, because a voter in Illinois would be just as valuable as a voter in Ohio under the Compact. The likely result would be that Ohio and Illinois would receive approximately equal attention, because they are approximately equal in population.

The role of unpaid volunteers would change under a national popular vote. Under the current system, there is considerable grassroots campaigning for President in the battleground states, because people in those states know that their votes and those of their neighbors matter. However, in the spectator states, there is no significant grassroots campaigning for President under the current system (except for the relatively small number of people who make phone calls into battleground states or physically travel to battleground states in order to campaign). Under a national popular vote, campaigning would become worthwhile in every state. Increased volunteer activity could partially counter the effect of large donations in political campaigns.

In an article entitled “The Electoral College is Brilliant, and We Would Be Insane to Abolish It,” Walter Hickey writes:

“Nobody wants to make the presidential election season any longer ….

“If you make it so a President has to travel to 50 states to court voters, that’s going to take time.”

“Dragging it out more months, jet setting from California to New York on weekends, that would make an already annoying election period into a downright intolerable one.”[355] [Emphasis added]

As Hickey correctly points out, the National Popular Vote Compact would force presidential candidates to “travel to 50 states to court voters.”

Indeed, we view that as a highly desirable feature—not a bug—of a national popular vote for President.

In 2016, the major-party presidential and vice-presidential candidates conducted 399 general-election campaign events.[356] Because of the current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes, almost four-fifths (79%) of all the campaign events (315 of 399) took place in eight states:

• Florida–71 events
• North Carolina–55 events
• Pennsylvania–54 events
• Ohio–48 events
• Virginia–23 events
• Michigan–22 events
• Iowa–21 events
• New Hampshire–21 events.

There is no reason that candidates could not have distributed these 399 campaign visits across all 50 states, instead of concentrating them in a small number of states. Planes, trains, and automobiles enable candidates to easily travel to any part of the county.

In fact, on a typical day during the fall general-election campaign, presidential candidates typically travel from one end of the country to the other in order to maximize the number of appearances (and attendant local media coverage) on a given day.

More than a half century ago, during the 1960 general-election campaign, Vice President Richard M. Nixon personally campaigned in all 50 states, and Senator John F. Kennedy did so in 43 states in the period between August 1 and November 7 (as shown in table 1.30).

The effect of a national popular vote for President would be that candidates would have to allocate their campaigning visits differently from how they do under the current system.

Every voter in every state would be equally important in every presidential election under the National Popular Vote Compact. If every voter were equally important, those same 399 visits could be—and necessarily would be—allocated throughout the entire country.

Although one cannot predict exactly how a future presidential campaign might unfold under the National Popular Vote Compact, it is likely that presidential candidates would distribute their limited number of campaign events among the states roughly in proportion to population (as shown in table 8.38 and figure 8.11).

Footnotes

Nevada Senator Keith Pickard told the Nevada Senate Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections on April 24, 2019, that it is:

“impossible physically to do a 50-state campaign.”

Table 8.37 shows the number of general-election campaign events for the major-party nominees for President and Vice President for the six presidential elections between 2000 and 2020. The average number of general-election campaign events in these six presidential elections was 339.[357]

Planes, trains, and automobiles enable candidates to easily travel to any part of the country. There is no physical reason why presidential and vice-presidential candidates could not visit all 50 states during the general-election campaign period starting after the national nominating conventions.

Let’s suppose that a future presidential campaign consists of the same number of general-election campaign events as 2016 (that is, 399).

If the country’s population (331,449,281 according to the 2020 census) is divided by 399, the result is one general-election campaign event for every 830,700 people.

In a nationwide popular vote for President, every vote would be equal, and the candidate receiving the most votes would win. Thus, a voter in one state would be just as important as a voter in any other state.

Table 8.38 and figure 8.11 show how 399 campaign events would be distributed among the states if candidates were to allocate their campaign events on the basis of population. That is, the number of campaign events for each state (shown in column 3) is obtained by dividing each state’s population by 830,700 and rounding off. For purposes of comparison, column 4 shows the actual distribution of 399 general-election campaign events that each state received in 2016 under the current state-by-state winner-take-all system.

As can be seen in the figure and table, every state would receive some attention in a nationwide campaign with 399 general-election campaign events—that is, there would be a 50-state campaign for President.

Footnotes

Thaddeus Dobracki has stated that the current state-by-state winner-take-all method of electing the President:

“negates the effect of exceptionally high or low turn-out in a state by giving the state a fix[ed] number of electors. For example, if bad weather, such as a hurricane, were to hit North Carolina, then instead of losing influence because of a low turnout, that state would still get its normal allocation of Electoral College votes.”[358] [Emphasis added]

The current state-by-state winner-take-all system does indeed ensure that a state affected by turnout-depressing weather (such as a hurricane) would nonetheless cast its full number of electoral votes in the Electoral College.

However, under the winner-take-all system, those electoral votes may be cast in a very different way because of the changed turnout.

Under the current system, a small difference in turnout (caused by bad weather or any other factor) in one part of a closely divided state can potentially flip the state’s electoral-vote outcome—and thereby also potentially determine the national outcome of a presidential election.

In contrast, a localized reduction in turnout in one part of one state would be unlikely to materially affect the outcome of a nationwide vote for President.

Bad weather regularly affects the outcome of both state and federal elections.

John F. Kennedy might have received a far larger majority of the popular vote in the then-battleground states of Illinois and Michigan had the weather been better in Chicago and Detroit on Election Day in 1960. As Theodore White wrote in The Making of the President 1968:

“The weather was clear all across Massachusetts and New England, perfect for voting as far as the crest of the Alleghenies. But from Michigan through Illinois and the Northern Plains states it was cloudy: rain in Detroit and Chicago, light snow falling in some states on the approaches of the Rockies.”[359] [Emphasis added]

Similarly, bad weather in a part of a closely divided state frequently affects which candidate carries the state in a state or federal election.

A turnout-depressing weather event on North Carolina’s hurricane-prone coast would adversely affect the Republican Party under the winner-take-all rule if it were to occur on or shortly before Election Day.

For example, the disposition of North Carolina’s entire bloc of 15 electoral votes was decided by President Obama’s statewide plurality of 14,177 popular votes in 2008.

Table 9.32 shows that 14 of the 17 counties on North Carolina’s Atlantic coast voted heavily Republican in the 2008 presidential election. As can been seen from the table, John McCain built up a net 43,433-vote margin from the state’s 17 coastal counties. Thus, a hurricane hitting North Carolina’s coast (causing disruption and evacuations) could easily shift the state’s potentially critical bloc of electoral votes from one party to the other—potentially resulting in the state’s electoral votes being cast in a way that is unrepresentative of voter sentiment in the state.

Table 9.32 Vote of North Carolina in 17 coastal counties in 2008

There was considerable speculation that Hurricane Sandy (which made landfall in Pennsylvania a week before the November 6, 2012, presidential election) might reduce voter turnout in the heavily Democratic city of Philadelphia (in the eastern part of the state). In contrast, the Republican central part of the state is much farther from the Atlantic Ocean. Lower turnout in Philadelphia had the potential of flipping the statewide plurality from Democrat Barack Obama to Republican Mitt Romney—thereby flipping the state’s 20 potentially critical electoral votes. Such an outcome would not have been reflective of normal voter sentiment in Pennsylvania as indicated by virtually every statewide poll before Election Day in 2012.[360]

In a state such as Florida, the political effect of a hurricane would depend on the location of the hurricane’s landfall.

Tampa is in Hillsborough County on the state’s west coast. It was the site of the 2012 Republican National Convention. Hurricanes frequently hit Florida’s west coast. In the November 2000 presidential election, George W. Bush received 180,794 votes in Hillsborough County, compared to Al Gore’s 169,576 votes—giving Bush a county-wide margin of 11,218 votes. In 2000, Bush won Florida by 537 votes out of 5,963,110 votes. If a hurricane had even slightly depressed turnout in Hillsborough County on Election Day in November 2000, all of Florida’s electoral votes would have gone to Al Gore (giving him all of Florida’s 25 electoral votes and making him President).

Conversely, if bad weather were to depress turnout in the more Democratic counties (such as Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach) in southeastern Florida, the Republican presidential nominee would benefit.

It does not take an event as dramatic as a hurricane to change the outcome of a presidential election. For example, there is evidence that rain in part of Florida decided the national outcome of the 2000 presidential election (section 1.3.3).

Footnotes

Bill Cibes submitted written testimony to a Connecticut legislative committee in 2013, saying:

“The NPV Compact would greatly enhance the influence of plutocrats who can afford to buy national advertising to cynically manipulate the passions of a nationwide electorate. Rich individuals, corporations and businesses, under the Citizens United decision, can now fund ideological propaganda that can sway the national popular vote.”[361]

Plutocrats can fund and manipulate campaigns regardless of whether electoral votes are awarded on a state-by-state winner-take-all basis or a nationwide basis.

Footnotes

David Davenport, a defender of the current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes, wrote in the Washington Examiner in 2018:

“How would [candidates] campaign if there were only a national popular vote? They … appear on popular media. It is hard to say that this is a preferable campaign.”[362] [Emphasis added]

Curtis Gans and Leslie Francis wrote in 2012:

“By its very size and scope, a national direct election will lead to nothing more than a national media campaign, which would propel the parties’ media consultants to inflict upon the entire nation what has been heretofore limited to the so-called battleground states: an ever-escalating, distorted arms race of tit-for-tat unanswerable attack advertising polluting the airwaves, denigrating every candidate and eroding citizen faith in their leaders and the political process as a whole.

“Because a direct election would be, by definition, national and resource allocation would be overwhelmingly dominated by paid television advertising, there would be little impetus for grassroots activity.[363][Emphasis added]

These criticisms of a national popular vote for President ignore the fact that, in a country with 330 million people, all presidential campaigns will be predominantly media campaigns.

This will be the case regardless of whether the target audience consists of the 60 to 95 million people living in the handful of closely divided battleground states or the 330 million people living in the entire United States.

Gans and Francis say that there would be “little impetus for grassroots activity” in a national popular vote for President. However, a nationwide campaign for President would make grassroots activity worthwhile in the spectator states that are ignored under the current state-by-state winner-take-all system. Thus, a national popular vote for President would slightly reduce the media’s role in the campaign.

Footnotes

John Samples of the Cato Institute has stated:

“NPV will encourage presidential campaigns to focus their efforts in dense media markets where costs per vote are lowest.”

“In general, because of the relative costs of attracting votes, the NPV proposal seems likely at the margin to attract candidate attention to populous states.”[364] [Emphasis added]

Claremont College Professor Michael Uhlmann stated in a January 20, 2012, debate at the Sutherland Institute in Salt Lake City:

“Under the National Popular Vote system, necessarily, there’s going to be tilting toward where the greater masses of votes are contained—in the larger cities and the immediate suburbs. That’s where the votes are. That’s where they can be reached the most cheaply. That’s where the maximum bang for the media buck gets paid. I think that’s the likely tendency.”[365] [Emphasis added]

The arguments made by both Samples and Uhlmann are contrary to the facts.

The cost of television advertising (by far the costliest component of presidential campaigns) is generally considerably higher on a per-impression basis in the larger media markets than in smaller markets.

Based on 488 quotations from television stations in media markets of various sizes for 30-second prime-time television ads for the weeks of October 15 and 22, 2012, compiled by Ainsley-Shea (a Minneapolis public relations firm) in July 2012, the average cost per impression was:

• 4.235 cents for the 1^st–5^th markets,
• 4.099 cents for the 26^th–30^th markets, and
• 3.892 cents for the 101^st–105^th markets.

The details of television advertising costs in the 1^st, 26^th, and 101^st largest media markets further illustrate the conclusion that television advertising is generally more expensive in the larger media markets than in smaller markets.

Table 9.33 shows the cost of a 30-second prime-time television slot in New York City—the nation’s No. 1 media market. Columns 1, 2, and 3 show the station, the time of day (all P.M.), and the program name, respectively. Columns 4, 5, and 6 show the rating,[366] share, and gross rating points (GRP), respectively, for adults 18 and older. Column 7 shows the cost of the slot. Column 8 shows the cost per 1,000 impressions (that is, the cost in column 7 divided by the media market’s population of 15,334,000). The average cost for New York City was $51.90 per 1,000 impressions—that is, 5.19 cents per impression.

Table 9.33 Television ads in New York City—the nation’s No. 1 media market—averaged 5.19 cents per impression.

The similarly computed cost of a 30-second prime-time television slot in Los Angeles—the nation’s No. 2 media market—averaged $56.53 per 1,000 impressions—5.653 cents per impression.

Table 9.34 shows the cost of a 30-second prime-time television slot in Indianapolis—the nation’s No. 26 media market. Column 8 shows the cost per 1,000 impressions (that is, the cost in column 7 divided by the market’s population of 2,094,000). The average cost for Indianapolis was $39.80 per 1,000 impressions—3.98 cents per impression.

Table 9.34 Television ads in Indianapolis—the nation’s No. 26 media market—averaged 3.98 cents per impression.

Table 9.35 shows the cost of a 30-second prime-time television slot in the nation’s No. 101 media market—Fort Smith, Fayetteville, Springdale, and Rogers, Arkansas. Column 8 shows the cost per 1,000 impressions (that is, the cost in column 7 divided by the market’s population of 573,000). The average cost for this market is $30.84 per 1,000 impressions—3.084 cents per impression.

Table 9.35 Television ads in the Fort Smith, Fayetteville, Springdale, and Rogers, Arkansas market—the nation’s No. 101 media market—averaged 3.084 cents per impression.

Soliciting every available vote is a strategic necessity when the winner of an election is the candidate who receives the most popular votes.

An NPR story entitled “Ads Slice Up Swing States with Growing Precision” reported on presidential campaigning in small media markets:

“‘It’s not a matter of just winning; it’s winning by how much,’ says Rich Beeson, a fifth-generation Coloradan and political director for the Romney campaign.”

“Beeson of the Romney campaign says smaller cities are vital to this chess game, especially since they’re cheaper to advertise in.

“‘A lot of secondary markets are very key to the overall map, whether it’s a Charlottesville in Virginia or a Colorado Springs in Colorado,’ he says. ‘You can’t ever cede the ground to anyone.’”[367] [Emphasis added]

Footnotes