Bernie Sanders has run more TV ads than Hillary Clinton in EACH of the last 6 months
For the last six months straight, Bernie Sanders has run more TV ads than Hillary Clinton in the fight for the Democratic presidential nomination. Amazing, no?
https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=
And even more amazing if you consider where the two candidates started this race. Clinton was the clear front-runner, expected to have hundreds of millions of dollars at her disposal in a primary campaign that was really nothing more than a light jog on the way to the general. Sanders was to be a nonfactor -- due in no small part to his presumed inability to raise money at anywhere near Clinton's pace. (In Sanders's 2012 Senate reelection race, he raised and spent just more than $3 million.)
If I told anyone -- including Bernie Sanders -- that he would raise almost $15 million more than Clinton in ANY month (he did just that in March) and that he would also outraise her in three straight months (as he has in January, February and March), he would not have believed me. I mean, that is STUNNING.
But what Beckel's chart above proves is that Sanders's ability to win in places such as Michigan, Wisconsin and beyond is not based solely on a massive surge of grass-roots energy. It's also built on thousands and thousands of television ads paid for by Sanders's off-the-charts fundraising. And it has long been true in politics that you would rather be the candidate with more ads on TV than fewer. It's not foolproof (see Bush, Jeb) but it usually helps rather than hinders.
Sanders's victories over the past few months have shocked much of the political world. Looking at the chart above, maybe we should have been a little less surprised.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/04/13/an-amazing-chart-that-shows-why-bernie-sanders-isnt-such-an-underdog-after-all/
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