Bang-for-the-Buck Index 2012: Stretching our contribution dollars

Map of U.S. television markets (dishuser.org) While it's too premature to start declaring the presidential race finished, that cake is smelling a little more baked each day. With that in mind, a young man's fancies turn increasingly toward thoughts of down-ballot races, and the importance of preserving our Senate majority and eating into the Republican edge in the House. Given the many options there, though, that raises the question of where to contribute.

Daily Kos's endorsements, like the Speaker Pelosi Project, are a great place to start. There are a number of potential angles to consider in where to contribute, though, and another consideration is how "efficient" a contribution is likely to be... in other words, how effectively will our netroots dollars be spent? While we don't have a way of knowing whether or not a campaign will make good strategic decisions, one thing we can evaluate is whether the media markets where a race will take place are good buys.

Think of it this way: a $100 contribution gets stretched a lot further in a race with a cheap media market, where there are few eyeballs to reach, than in a race with expensive markets. In, say, Wyoming, that $100 might actually buy you an airing or multiple airings of an ad; in New York, your investment would buy you the tiniest fraction of an ad. Your 'investment' is a lot likelier to pay dividends -- in the form of more viewers, and hopefully more changed minds -- in the cheaper market. In other words, in a cheaper market, you can exert a lot more leverage.

You'll probably notice, looking at the chart below, that there's a strong relationship between the population of a state and the cost of advertising there. That's because, quite logically, the more viewers are in a market, the more it costs to buy ad space there. However, the efficiency question is complicated by the question of 'wasted eyeballs,' being forced to pay to advertise to people for whom the ad isn't relevant. Many media markets cross state lines, and that means that a campaign buying ads in those markets is paying for eyeballs that can't vote in that election.

It's not a huge issue in the presidential race, since even when ads bleed over from swing states into non-swing states, everyone is still voting in the same election. It's a much bigger issue in Senate races, though (and even worse in House races, where in the biggest metropolitan areas, a contested district may be one of dozens). Consider, for instance, the Virginia Senate race, where the largest percentage of the state's voters live in the Washington DC market, one of the nation's most populous and expensive markets... but in order to advertise there, that means spending millions of dollars to beat residents of Maryland and the District of Columbia (and, for that matter, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia) over the head with your irrelevant ads. As you can see below, the wasted-eyeball phenomenon is even worse in the states that border New York City.

Information about how much it costs to advertise in a particular district isn't public and difficult to come by, but we've obtained some rough data from Democratic media-buying sources. (Don't use these figures to engage in your own media buying; these are slightly outdated numbers, and there's also a disparity in the amounts charged to various clients. Candidates, for instance, pay a different rate than third-party groups like the national committees or Super PACs, who wind up paying considerably more. I'm merely giving you these numbers to give you a sense of the magnitude of the difference between cheap markets and expensive markets. The overall ratio is what you should be focused on.)

The amount of money given for each race is the amount to run a full flight of ads. In media-buying jargon, that would be the amount needed to ensure that an ad airs 10 times in outlets that will get it to 100% of the intended audience. For the statewide races, the given markets don't necessarily blanket the entire state, but are simply media buyers' "recommended" markets (which tend to exclude markets that cover less than, say, 10% of the state's population). A campaign that's feeling particularly stingy (or engaged in some skillful microtargeting) could choose to avoid certain markets and save money, or if they're especially flush, they could also choose to advertise in markets beyond the "recommended" parameters. (For instance, Florida's Bill Nelson might choose to put some money into the Dothan, Alabama market in addition to the 10 other recommended markets, just to make sure the Panhandle gets completely blanketed.)

Here is the Senate chart; the closer to the top a race is, the more "efficient" a pick it is...

As you can see, by far the best advertising deal among all the nation's remotely-competitive Senate races is North Dakota. It's one of the least populous states, and it doesn't have much of a wasted-eyeball factor either (the Fargo market does extend many miles into Minnesota, but those are pretty empty miles). Former Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp is our candidate there, as we try to hold the open seat left by Kent Conrad's retirement, and a contribution to her goes about 57 times further than a contribution to New Jersey's Bob Menendez. (As far as advertising goes, at least; contributions certainly pay for GOTV, advertising in other media, and simple organization. But broadcast TV is very much the largest expense for a campaign in a competitive statewide race.) And at the end of the day, Heitkamp would be one more Senator, worth exactly as much as Menendez toward a majority.

Of course, ideology matters too, not just the business of getting to a majority. While Heitkamp and Montana's Jon Tester are some of the most "efficient" picks (and great campaigners), their more moderate profiles may not appeal to all netroots donors. Nevertheless, there are some very progressive options at the bargain end of the scale, most notably Mazie Hirono and Martin Heinrich in the open seats in Hawaii and New Mexico, respectively. Both Hirono and Heinrich are part of Daily Kos's Upgrade the Senate program.

There's much more discussion over the fold...