With races too close to call, real winners are super PACs
The new Franklin Pierce University/Boston Herald poll shows that in New Hampshire, the presidential race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and the U.S. Senate race between Maggie Hassan and Kelly Ayotte are statistical ties — and ties go to the super PACs.
The tightness of the races is not completely unexpected, as voters in New Hampshire tend to wait until the last minute to make their selections, as we saw in the presidential primaries. This prompts candidates to say that polls are not particularly important or relevant early in the race.
However, others are not so sanguine. In particular, candidate, party and issue-driven supporters, including the notorious super PACs, take the polling data very seriously. It can be a major factor in their spending decisions — when a race is tight, spending increases exponentially.
According to Opensecrets .org, the Center for Responsive Politics website, spending for the presidential race from outside sources — excluding party committees — stands at almost $272 million as of yesterday. That same source lists the New Hampshire Senate race as the sixthmost expensive race in the nation, with almost $6 million spent thus far.
In the presidential race, Trump’s candidate committee has spent by far the least, about $58 million, compared with Clinton — who has spent about $204 million — while Sanders is the spending leader at $207 million. Meanwhile, in the New Hampshire Senate race, Ayotte’s campaign has spent about $3.7 million to Hassan’s $1.5 million.
The spending patterns combined with the statistical ties in the presidential race and the New Hampshire Senate race suggest that the races are likely to set new records for both outside and candidate spending. The majority of this spending will come from super PACs and other outside sources. And no matter how many times candidates may try to tell you that poll numbers are irrelevant, the spending by both candidates and outside funding sources indicate the exact opposite.
History suggests that with races this tight, voters should be prepared for a barrage of campaign ads, with the majority of those ads being against, rather than for, a particular candidate. So through November, sit back and enjoy the show.