As the 2016 campaigns continue, candidates are spending more on advertising that attacks the other candidates. But who’s getting targeted most by the negative ads?
It depends on how you measure that.
As you can see, the dynamic here has really changed. From Feb. 21-27, super PACs unloaded $11.5 million against Donald Trump. More than $8 million of that spending came from Conservative Solutions PAC, which is affiliated with Marco Rubio. As of last week, almost 90 percent of the spending against Trump in February came from super PACs not affiliated with a specific campaign. But Rubio’s contribution has been substantial enough that the same figure is now less than 30 percent.
Previously, Rubio had been hit hardest by super PACs putting out negative ads. When Jeb Bush dropped out, however, his Right to Rise Super PAC stopped the attacks against Rubio. Ted Cruz’s super PACs are keeping the pressure on, but the attacks are lighter than they used to be.
Meanwhile, Cruz is starting to take more heat. Every dollar spent against Cruz in the past seven days has come from Rubio’s super PAC, Conservative Solutions. The PAC is focusing most of its energy on Trump, but $4.5 million of spending against Cruz shows the Rubio team still wants Cruz out of the race, or at least to take some of Cruz’s voters.
None of the Super PACs seem concerned with John Kasich or Ben Carson, or even any interest in peeling their voters away. The only super PAC to spend against those candidates was Club for Growth Action, and it only spent $15 — that’s 15 dollars, not fifteen thousand — each against them.
On the Democratic side, things are still quiet in terms of negative spending. No Democratic super PACs have spent against Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. In fact, no major super PAC has spent against Sanders since Jan. 31. While that doesn’t hurt his numbers, it also shows that no one feels threatened by his candidacy.
The number of negative commercials released by super PACs and campaigns is another way to track who’s getting targeted most often. By this metric, Trump has been targeted most often, with six new ads against him in the past seven days. Four of those ads are courtesy of Conservative Solutions. Rubio has been hit by only two new ads against him, while Cruz has only been hit by one. Again, Kasich and Carson are unscathed.
Although Trump frequently goes negative on the campaign trail, he has only released one negative campaign ad in the past month. That ad targeted Cruz.
No ads have gone negative against Sanders in the past month. Clinton has had two against her, but they both came from Republican sources.
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
