With just over a month left until the primary election, candidates and super PACs — including two newcomers — are ramping up their TV ad spending.
Honolulu’s top mayoral contenders together bought another $80,000 in ads this past week. Meantime, Republican Senate candidate Linda Lingle herself spent $115,000, according to the public files.
Kirk Caldwell paid more than $28,210 for 128 spots, the vast majority of which have been airing on KHON, KHNL, KGMB, KFVE and KITV this week. Previously, he only spent about $8,000 on political ads.
Mayor Peter Carlisle spent about the same amount — $25,250 total — this past week. Most of that money was spent on 36 spots that are set to air throughout July on KHON. He also paid $2,000 for a banner ad that will appear on KITV’s website starting July 23. The banner will remain online through the primary elections, according to KITV’s Vice President of Sales Bill Gaeth.
Ben Cayetano aired only one ad in May. But this week he spent about $26,500 on TV ads that have been airing since Wednesday and will run through early next week. He spent $21,500 for 56 spots on all the local broadcast stations and about $5,000 for spots on cable networks such as CNN, USA and TNT.
Civil Beat has been visiting the local broadcast stations each week to look at their political files. These files show which candidates and political action committees have been buying ad time and for how much.
As of now, that information is only available in paper form at the individual stations, with the exception of contracts with Oceanic Time Warner. But that could change. The U.S. Office of Management and Budget last week approved a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) measure that requires TV stations post that information online. The FCC, which first passed the rule in April, has yet to announce last week’s development in the Federal Register.
Two Unions Start Buying Time
Two new independent expenditure committees have begun buying ad time on the cable networks, according to Time Warner’s public files. One is the University of Hawaii Professional Assembly (UHPA). That group spent a total of about $50,000 on 2,517 spots that will air through the Aug. 11 primary on networks ranging from CNN to the Food Network. According to the contract, the UHPA ad endorses U.S. Senate Democratic candidate Ed Case.
The other new super PAC is the pro-rail Operating Engineers Local Union No. 3, which paid $14,510 for 164 spots on A&E, CNN, ESPN, FX and TNT. That ad will air through the primary elections.
The Pacific Resource Partnership, a pro-rail lobbying group, made the biggest purchase this week. The company’s PAC spent about $165,500 on the 493 spots that have been airing this past week on all the local broadcast stations. As of Wednesday, the group has spent a total of $408,260 airing its anti-Cayetano ads, according to the public files.
VoteVets.org, a mainland tax-exempt super PAC that has already invested $220,000 in ads endorsing 2nd Congressional District Democratic candidate Tulsi Gabbard, bought another 138 spots. Those spots, which will air through early July on all the local broadcast stations, cost the group $71,730. About $170,000 total, counting this week’s purchases, have shown up in the public files so far.
Lingle is also continuing to expend her political war chest. This week, she spent a total of roughly $115,800 on spots that will air on local broadcast stations and Time Warner cable networks. She paid $110,630 for 297 spots that will air through the primary elections — four of which will air during Saturday and Sunday’s Olympic trials — on KHON, KHNL, KGMB and KITV. She also spent $5,100 on spots that have been airing this week on major cable networks.
As of Wednesday, Lingle, who’s running as a Republican to replace Daniel Akaka in the U.S. Senate, has spent at least $260,000 this year on campaign ads.
Her Time Warner contract shows that she is now paying only $2,500 per week on her cable channel “LL2012.” For the last two weeks, she’d been paying $5,000 per week for the channel. Lingle paid the initial $5,000 rate to cover extra costs associated with the channel’s construction, according to Time Warner Cable Sales Manager Michael Garcia.
Gabbard this week spent three times the amount she spent last week. She bought an additional 243 spots on KHON, KGMB, KFVE and KITV for $78,250 total. Those ads are set to air through the primary elections.
Mufi Hannemann, who’s running in the Democratic primary against Gabbard, spent $22,135 on 139 spots that have been airing this week on KHON, KGMB, KHNL and KITV’s subsidiary MeTV. The seven spots he bought on KHNL have been airing during Olympic trials.
Candidates and independent expenditure committees have spent at least $2,132,260 on ad time so far this election season. Roughly half of that money, or about $1,130,500, was spent by independent expenditure committees.
