It is an election year, and the air is already thick with anticipation. Former President Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden are the two frontrunners to win their party’s nominations for the 2024 presidential election.
Amid polls showing a close battle between the candidates, with one trending ahead, a political action committee is prepared to unleash a storm of advertisement, with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake.
What Happened: After being ahead in past months and edging closer in the race against Trump, Biden has fallen behind Trump in national 2024 election polls.
Biden also trails Trump in seven swing states, pivotal in deciding the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.
Political Action Committee Future Forward, a Democratic super PAC supporting Biden, is gearing up to unleash a $250 million advertising blitz across swing states, as reported by the New York Times.
The $250 million will be divided into $140 million for television ads and $110 million for ads on digital and streaming platforms, according to the report.
At $250 million, this marks the largest single purchase by a super PAC for political advertising in American history, according to Future Forward.
The advertisements are slated to start airing in August, the day after the Democratic National Convention, and will persist until Election Day in November.
Future Forward has reserved advertising space in the pivotal seven swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Key areas of focus include $16 million and $12 million in the Atlanta, Georgia, and Phoenix, Arizona, TV markets, respectively.
“The stakes of this election could not be higher, and by Election Day, every battleground voter will know it,” remarked Future Forward’s super PAC President Chauncey McLean. “We’ll run a cost-effective and data-driven program of unprecedented scale to re-elect Joe Biden.”
Future Forward deployed $151 million on advertising to boost Biden in the 2020 election, as per the report.
Why It’s Important: A recent Morning Consult poll showed Biden trailing Trump in all seven swing states, with the following percentages of registered voters favoring each candidate.
Arizona: 39% Biden, 45% Trump
Georgia: 41% Biden, 42% Trump
Michigan: 39% Biden, 44% Trump
Nevada: 37% Biden, 44% Trump
North Carolina: 38% Biden, 48% Trump
Pennsylvania: 40% Biden, 44% Trump
Wisconsin: 40% Biden, 43% Trump
The remaining voters selected someone else or don’t know as their preferred option.
Combined, the seven swing states represent 93 electoral votes in the 2024 election. Six of the seven swing states were won by Biden in the 2020 election, with Trump securing victory in North Carolina. Five of the seven swing states won by Biden in 2020 flipped from Trump to Biden in the election.
Pundits opined that the 2024 election cycle is expected to surpass the previous record of $10.2 billion in ad spending, marking a 13% surge from the 2020 election. The seven swing states could witness the heaviest ad spending, constituting 75% of the total presidential election expenditure.
Stocks to Watch: The upsurge in advertising spending for the 2024 election races could potentially benefit national television companies, including Paramount Global PARAPARAA, Fox Corp FOXFOXA, Comcast Corp CMCSA, and Walt Disney Co DIS, owners of CBS, FOX, NBC, and ABC, respectively.
Apart from the national media companies, several publicly traded companies own local media stations that could stand to benefit from national campaigns and local races during the 2024 election.
This list includes Gray Television Inc GTN, NexStar Media Group Inc NXST, Tegna Inc TGNA, and E.W. Scripps Company SSP.
The New York Times report also underscored several companies that could benefit from digital advertisements.
YouTube, owned by Alphabet Inc GOOGGOOGL, has around $35 million in ads reserved by Future Forward. Roku Inc ROKU and Disney-owned Hulu and Vevo were also cited as companies receiving digital ad buys from the PAC.
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