Republicans have ceded Pennsylvania, and other lessons from the ad wars

Thanks to the Washington Post's political ad tracker, we can gain some insight into campaign strategy. Here's where the biggest national players spent money on the week of July 23-29:

Crossroads is Karl Rove's outfit. Restore Our Future is Mitt Romney's Super PAC while Americans for Prosperity is the Koch Brothers' operation. Priorities USA is Pres. Barack Obama's Super PAC.

Some observations:

• Have the Republicans given up on Pennsylvania? Looks that way. Romney's campaign hasn't run any ads there since the primary (April). It's been at least five weeks since Crossroads spent any money in the state, and over a month since Restore Our Future did. Prosperity did advertise in Pennsylvania the first three weeks of July before going dark nationally last week. In this world, you're not contesting a state unless you are advertising in it.

  Meanwhile, neither Obama nor his Super PAC are taking the state for granted, but neither are they spending the big bucks there. Both spent less than $100,000, which is chump change in this very expensive state.

• Missouri and New Mexico are being ignored by both campaigns. Neither have seen an ad by either campaign, their Super PACs, or their national party committees the entire year. Crossroads spent a little coin in New Mexico back in March, but has ignored it since. Prosperity spent money there all through July until this last week, when they went dark nationally.

  I think we can assume that Missouri has been ceded to Romney, and New Mexico to Obama. Neither is a surprise, unlike Pennsylvania.

• The DNC hasn't spent a dime all year. They spent that $6.3 million last year.
• The RNC spent $1.3 million airing national ads last week, while the Obama campaign spent $2.4 million. Both targeted the Olympics, though I've seen Obama ads in fairly heavy rotation on CNN as well.

  I'm curious about those national Obama ads, since his campaign has been so laser-focused on spending money on the States That Matter. Given how important national poll numbers are to the media narrative (and just about nothing else), I wonder if the Obama camp is directly targeting that narrative (as opposed to targeting voters).  

• The only ads Obama has run in Michigan all year happened during the GOP primary, when he tried to give Rick Santorum a leg up. Romney hasn't advertised in the state with the perfectly proportioned trees since the primary.

  In fact, the only outfit to target Michigan has been Crossroads, where Rove spent significantly to try and move the needle. Mission not accomplished.

• Speaking of Crossroads, Karl Rove has been coming close to parity with the Democratic presidential campaign. Add up all the conservative outfits, and they significantly outspent the Democrats $14.3 million to $9 million last week.

  That's a lot of money they're pissing away.

• Prosperity made a half-assed effort in Wisconsin in early July, but that's about it. It looks like Republicans are ceding the cheeseheads to Obama as well. That RNC buy noted in the chart above? It was for a pathetic $3,500. It was probably a naked play for some cheap newspaper coverage.
• TV stations in Colorado, Iowa, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio and Washington DC are getting rich. So are stations in Boston, Portland (ME) and Burlington (VT)'all of which bleed into New Hampshire.

The Obama campaign is keeping a close eye on Arizona, ready to pounce if it starts looking competitive. It hasn't. Rather than expand, the battleground map has actually tightened. Based on where the campaigns are spending their ad dollars, the entire campaign is now Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia.

If that's truly the case, then Romney is in serious trouble. Add up the EVs of all the states out of play, and Obama leads 247 to 191. And given that Obama currently leads in all the remaining states except for North Carolina, Romney's path to 270 is difficult at best.