Data, from Circa Victor, a company that tracks political spending:
SUPERPAC, in support of Clinton |
$7.1M |
Superpac, opposing Clinton |
$1.2M |
SUPERPAC, IN SUPPORT OF Sanders |
$10.1M |
SuperPAC, opposing Sanders |
$0 |
Clinton Campaign |
$6.9M |
Sanders campaign |
$8.4M |
Total, pro-Clinton |
$14M |
Total, Pro-Sanders |
$19.7M |
Sigh, imagine that money used to build our party and candidates ahead of the November election? It is notable that Clinton-supporting Super PACs didn’t attack Sanders. The attack stuff has been one-sided. Also, Sanders and his allies have significantly outspent the Clinton side. That makes sense. Clinton already won this thing. Her motivation here is to prevent the kind of loss that would give Sanders reason to carry on. Meanwhile, Sanders has nothing to lose at this point. Whatever he has, he has to throw into California. I’m more surprised that his allies have this kind of money to burn.
Also notable? I live in California, and I’ve seen almost none of this spending. I saw a billboard on I-580 on the way to the San Rafael bridge from a nurse’s union. I received one direct-mail piece from Clinton yesterday, a couple of weeks after I had voted. Nothing from Sanders campaign even though I live in Berkeley, which is the epicenter of Berniemania. Of course, I don’t watch network TV and cut the cord a while ago, so I haven’t seen whatever it is they’re doing on TV. Not a lot of ads on Netflix or the ad-free version of Hulu. Though now that I think about it, I didn’t see any campaign spending during the NBA finals, which I’ve been watching live
Not everyone is me, however. So maybe there are people out there that still pay attention to commercial and don’t have DVRs to skip them. I grow more skeptical by the day, regardless. Either way, as we’ve seen in most of these contested states, Sanders has thrown everything he has, desperate for any rationale to stay in the race. Clinton, on the other hand, is spending as little as she can, husbanding resources for the fall, but unwilling or unable to deliver a knockout blow.
Of course, today, the math delivered that knockout blow, irrespective of what I and my neighbors marked down in our ballots.