Influence of Super PACs on Romney Campaign

        The final hypothesis is that the spending initiated on advertisements saturated the voters to the point that it was ineffectual for both parties. This would contribute to Romney’s defeat because the impact then resided in ground and grass root operations, where Obama held a distinct advantage. The two candidates spent a combined $968 million on advertising. The trend was initiated by the super PACs which supported Romney, forcing Obama’s hand to seek advertising money from super PACs of his own in order to compete. The significance of the final hypothesis would be a future change in campaign strategies; a shift in focus from advertising to ground operations.

        The exit poll question of “when did you finally decide whom to vote in the presidential election?” offers a look into the validity of the first hypothesis. The poll shows that 69% of voters had made their decision before September, with 53% in support of Obama, and 49% in support of Romney. During this time, approximately 60% of the US population identified without question with either the democratic or republican parties, meaning they almost assuredly had decided to vote for their parties candidate before the September. This leaves around 9% of “leaning” or independent voters who had made up their mind early. This number is equal to that of the percentage of voters who decided in September and the number who decided within the last few days prior to the election, and 2% less than the amount of voters who decided in October. In addition, while Obama held 7% more of the voters who decided before September, he also held 7% more of the voters who decided on the last day. The conclusion of this data is that Romney’s 6 week hiatus from advertising due to his spending during the primaries was not significant to his loss in the election.

        The second hypothesis, questioning the advertising strategy of the super PACs supporting Romney, is better supported by the data. Political action committees as a whole spent $290.9 million in advertisements which opposed Obama, compared to $57.6 million on advertisements which supported Romney. Referring again to the exit polls, it is shown that the negative advertising may not be very effective. Only 10% of voters described their vote as being placed because they dislike the other candidates, compared to the 88% of voters who either strongly favored or liked their choice for president. In the largest demographic, those who strongly favored their candidate, Obama won 9% more votes than Romney did. In addition, the Obama campaign ran 15,000 more ads in swing states than the Romney campaign. The decision to essentially waste a bulk of their resources on negative ads while losing ground in advertising in the most crucial election states gives merit to the hypothesis questioning the super PACs strategies.

        Since advertising to the degree of the 2012 election is a new trend, with 44.5% more ads run than in 2008, data from outside of politics must be used to evaluate the third hypothesis. Since both the Obama and Romney campaigns would have ranked in the top 50 US advertisers, it makes sense to compare their techniques from companies that employ as similar approach. Examples of this idea was when Pepsi and Coke engaged in a similar advertising arms race, which yielded no advantage for either company, and actually lost part of their market share to smaller drink companies. A similar situation occurred with General Motors, who spent about twice as much as their rivals then proceeded to lose ground as well. The biggest advertising spender in the US, Procter & Gamble, lost 55% of its business last quarter. In fact, the advertising war may have gone so far as to hurt candidates, as 20% of the people surveyed in a study said they would stop using a product if they were subjected to too many advertisements. The idea behind this information is that the current trend in the US is that over advertising, a strategy initiated by the Republican super PACs and mimicked by the Democrats, ends up nullifying any positive effects. This data, while not specifically focused on the presidential election, does reveal the attitude of the voting population, which means the third hypothesis cannot be disconfirmed.

        In conclusion, the remaining hypothesis in regards to why the support of super PACs did not ensure a Romney victory are that the independent advertising strategy of the super PACs was not as good as Obama’s synthesized approach, and that the over-advertising in the election placed more importance on the ground operations of the campaigns, where Obama held the advantage. The importance of this study is that while the 2012 election witnessed a huge increase in funding from political action committees, much of those resources were mismanaged. This led to super PACs not having as much influence on the election as was possible. The concerning side of this study is that many of these mistakes are fixable. With the increase in financial contributions by these organizations, if combined with more effective strategy, upcoming elections could witness much more pressure on the candidates to shape policies which appeal to the large corporations behind the wealth.

Influence of Super PACs on the Romney Campaign

Poli Sci 40

12/7/12

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