House Democrats book $18.3 million in fall TV ads
ANALYSIS — With less than six months before Election Day, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has reserved more than $18.3 million in airtime for broadcast television ads during the final months of the campaign.
It’s likely the first of multiple rounds of reservations, considering the committee’s independent expenditure arm spent more than $73 million on TV during the 2018 cycle.
This initial round of reservations overlap with the Senate and presidential battleground states, including Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada and Pennsylvania, where media markets are likely to get crowded and expensive.
Back in April, the two biggest partisan super PACs — the GOP-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund ($51 million) and Democratic-aligned House Majority PAC ($43 million) — placed nearly $100 million combined in initial ad reservations. The National Republican Congressional Committee hasn’t made its initial ad reservations.
A few years ago, political reporters rightly handled television ad reservations loosely and delicately as strategists from both parties used them to play games. Strategists would make some reservations with little or no intent to fulfill them in order to fake out the other party, the media or both.
https://www.rollcall.com/2020/05/26/house-democrats-book-18-3-million-in-airtime-for-fall-tv-ads/