Bang-for-the-Buck Index: House Edition

19 thoughts on “Bang-for-the-Buck Index: House Edition”

1. Thank you for taking the time to put it together!

2.    Nobody who is not insanely rich would ever consider broadcast TV in the Los Angeles market for a Congressional race. The only one I can think of who did use it was Jane Harman (who is wealthy)when she first ran for Congress. There are just too many wasted eyeballs with something like twenty districts in the area. Cable TV is a possibility because it can be targetted by area and type of programming. Direct mail is big, too. Maybe you could use a Palm Springs station ( if there is one) for CA-45 but otherwise forget it.

3. PA-15 also has no local stations.  I used to live there.  Viewers get a combination of NY City and Philly broadcast usually via cable.  In fact, cable tv was invented for this market in 1948 in an attempt to sell those newfangled Tvs.  Service Electric is still around but now has competition in the area in the form of RCN.

   Fwiw, Pat Toomey (nearly US Senate nominee, now head of Club For Growth) won his primary in PA-15 despite avoiding cable (or at least Service Electric).  I saw a lot of Toomey road signs that year.  His opponent was on cable all the time.  The local papers talked about Toomey with respect but my read is that neither the Allentown Morning Call nor the Easton Express had much idea what was going on.  I would guess that districts like this tend to provoke unconventional campaign methods in part because the conventional methods are just so expensive and wasteful.

4. I don’t think a candidate in this district needs to use the Tulsa market.  The two counties closer to Tulsa than Wichita are Montgomery (36,000). In Montgomery County. Independence (9,317) is closer to Wichita and Coffeyville (10,387) is closer to Tulsa.

   I grew up in Winfield (Cowley County) which borders Oklahoma. We couldn’t get Tulsa stations in the pre-cable days and they aren’t on cable there.  
   

5. Delaware’s covered by Philadelphia (only state without its own TV station), and I think Salisbury (and possibly Baltimore). Hugely expensive state. Which is why we’re perpetually stuck with Mike “Let’s Put Stuff On Our Coins” Castle.

6. Does the Hartford media market cover New Haven? If so, then the Hartford numbers will be more than negligible, as CT’s ABC (and CW) affiliate is located in New Haven. The NBC and CBS affiliates are in Hartford and are more Hartford-centric, while WTNH (ABC) in New Haven tends to focus more on southern CT, and I believe that it gets fairly decent ratings in Fairfield County, especially in Bridgeport and its surrounding suburbs.

   It’s a bit of a problem; all of CT-04 gets the CT broadcast stations while also getting the major New York stations.

   I guess I should also mention that Cablevision-owned Channel 12 has a station based in Bridgeport that caters exclusively to Fairfield County, making it even more difficult to reach voters.

   The DCCC would do better to just buy up some billboards on I-95 (CT-04 residents are always waiting in traffic anyway) and buy some advertising on the train platforms, and better have some people on the train platforms in Stamford and Grand Central handing out literature.  

7. your the best!

8. 1.  To what extent can a candidate target using cable?  That is very possible here in the SF Bay Area, though it’s still expensive.

   2.  If a cnadidate were strong (had a base) in one part of a mixed media market, could s/he save moeny and do most of the advertising ion the other part(s), especially bio ads?

   3.  TV isn’t everything, so we shouldn’t assume that money sent to some of these candidates won;t be effective in reaching vpoters through other means, especially with a vogorous campaign using ground, radio etc.

   4.  (Bonus questions)  How come small town/rural voters are both conservative and in cheap media markets?  Why does it have to cost so much to reach voters in mome liberal areas?  Is this part of the GOP’s secret?

   1. do you mean Louisiana or Los Angeles?

9. I live in Pennsylvania 5.  The local TV news stations are terrible – just a police blotter of the latest robbery, murder, fire, etc.
   
   Local politicians win with the old fashion methods – phone banks, lawn signs, mailers, word of mouth.
   
   The one media market that might be effective is the local radio stations — they are cheap and everyone listens to them.  Also local newspapers will carry ads and they are relatively cheap as well.
   
   This year we are hoping that the 50 state strategy will have an effect and also the enthusiasm from Obama.
   
   Several counties in 5 now have more Democrats registered than Republicans for the first time. Penn State students have been very active as well and are in PA 5.
   
   Anyone wants to contribute – send money to http://www.mccrackenforcongress.com.  The Repub cnadidate is not particularly well funded and can be beat.

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