That’s because the vast majority of Bush’s ads are paid for by his super PAC – roughly 85 percent for Bush versus only 40 percent for Rubio – and super PACs get far less bang for their buck.
“A dollar is not a dollar,” explained Evan Tracey, a veteran political ad buyer at National Media, a Republican media firm. “Candidate dollars go much farther than super PAC dollars go.”
In Iowa and New Hampshire, for example, super PACs are confronting ad rates that can soar to nearly 1,000 percent more than the rates charged of candidates — an enormous markup that is sapping much of the punch from the $103 million Bush and his allies had amassed by mid-2015…
Take the NBC affiliate in Des Moines, WHO. Over the two weeks between December 28 and January 11, Rubio will pay an average of $219 per 30-second spot while Bush’s super PAC will pay nearly eight times that amount, $1,596 per 30 seconds, during the same period at the same station.
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