Elizabeth Warren Slashing Ad Spending in South Carolina

MANCHESTER, NEW HAMPSHIRE - FEBRUARY 11: Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth
Scott Olson/Getty Images
Hannah Knudsen

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) campaign in the last week has “canceled or moved more than $1.2 million worth of television ads” in upcoming primary states Nevada and South Carolina following below-par performances in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Warren has been in the process of reconfiguring her ad campaign strategy, according to multiple reports. Research firm CMAG/Kantar indicated that Warren began canceling $660,000 in ads after the chaotic Iowa caucuses and has reportedly slashed $370,000 in ad spending in South Carolina after her poor performance in New Hampshire’s Tuesday primary, moving the bulk of those resources to Nevada.

Advertising Analytics initially reported that it saw “over $300k cut” thus far, including in Nevada, but later reported that she “did not cut everything” in Nevada and “will still be up from the 16th to the 23rd in the state and in fact just added spending”:

Medium Buying also reported that Warren is “canceling ad schedules that had been booked in SC for later in February” and is “going dark” after February 16. Her campaign is placing ad spending in Maine, a Super Tuesday state, according to reports:

The cuts follow Warren’s slow fall in the polls and poor performances in Iowa and New Hampshire. While Warren placed third in the Iowa caucuses, earning eight delegates, she failed to reach the 15 percent threshold required to receive delegates in New Hampshire. She placed fourth in the Granite State, coming behind Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) with 9.2 percent support.

As Advertising Analytics points out, Warren spent $1.4 million on New Hampshire, $200,000 less than Klobuchar’s $1.6 million, yet came in over ten points behind the Minnesota senator in her own neighboring state:

Warren and her campaign are brushing off her poor performances in the first two primary contests in the nation. The presidential hopeful told her supporters during a speech at her campaign headquarters in Manchester, New Hampshire, Tuesday night that Democrats need a candidate “that the broadest coalition of our party feels like they can get behind” in order to defeat the president.

Her campaign manager Roger Lau also struck a positive tone in a Medium post on Tuesday, reiterating the campaign’s belief that Warren will come out as “the consensus of choice” after Super Tuesday.

“And as the race consolidates after Super Tuesday, we expect the results to show that Elizabeth Warren is the consensus choice of the widest coalition of Democrats in every corner of the country,” he wrote.

The latest RealClearPolitics average shows Warren in fourth place in South Carolina and third place in Nevada, although polls for the latter have not been publicly released in recent weeks.

Wednesday’s RealClearPolitics national average also shows billionaire Michael Bloomberg (D) overtaking the Massachusetts senator’s previously held third place position, besting her by just short of two percentage points.

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