Scarce Political Advertisements in PA

People who are living in the state of Pennsylvania may be wondering what is going on. The state is known for its history with political advertisements and is often one of the primary states targeted with presidential campaigns, especially during an election season. At this point, Pennsylvanians are likely wondering why their television is not being overrun with all sorts of political advertisements for both candidates, President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. The truth is that for the past few months, since the month of May, presidential candidates have not spent much money for advertising in the state of Pennsylvania, even though it was one of the most important states during the presidential election of 2008.

Back in 2008, Barack Obama and John McCain ended up spending millions of dollars, totaling up to around $41 million, for advertisement to be displayed in Pennsylvania throughout the presidential election campaign. The money spent for advertising in Pennsylvania was almost more money spent than any other state, aside from the state of Florida. However, at this point, President Obama has only spent around $5 million on advertisements to be featured in Pennsylvania from the month of May to the end of July. While he only spent $5 million in Pennsylvania, during the same period of time, he spent around $26 million for the state of Ohio. Mitt Romney also spent millions in Ohio but has not spent any money for advertisements in Pennsylvania at all.

Lara Brown, a political scientist at the Villanova University, which is located in Philadelphia, has said that Pennsylvania is simply known as a lower-level target for the presidential campaigns. Brown says, “Pennsylvania kind of suffers from that sense of ‘The Republicans haven’t won this in so long, why are they competing?'” But the truth is that the reason Republicans are still competing is because prior to the win for Obama back in 2008, victories for Democratic presidents were actually quite rare.

Since the primary season started, Romney has taken a trip to Pennsylvania at least four times, while Obama has only visited the state two times. His wife, Michelle Obama, has been to the state of Pennsylvania a bit more, visiting it a total of three times. The state of Pennsylvania, known as the Keystone state, is still an important state in determining the outcome of the presidential elections, especially with the large number of senior citizens living in the state, who often have an opinion on what is going on with Medicare. At this point, things could change at any given moment but right now, there has not been much political ad spending in the state.