Interesting that Rasmussen isn’t having a significant effect on the electoral vote results. Earlier, there was an obvious shift, but apparently the margins are solidifying such that Rasmussen (or another Republican-leaning pollster) can’t move the numbers enough to change the results. 

This year, Electoral-vote.com has a place you can click to eliminate Rasmussen from the polling. It seems a sensible move. I suspect Rasmussen’s numbers are what had caused Electoral-vote to differ from Nate last time around, but I could be mistaken on that.

Anyway, as of now, when you include Rasmussen, the current electoral map gives President Obama 332 electoral votes, to Romney’s 206. If you click for Rasmussen-free maps, then President Obama has 332 electoral votes, to Romney’s 206.

In other words, not even Rasmussen is making things look any better for Romney.

So, which campaign is spending smarter?

Also, having a spouse who studies negative campaigning makes this season particularly interesting, because I get to hear all the criticisms of ham-fisted messaging and poorly constructed ads. Heh.

From the RNC, they keep recycling this one about the higher costs of healthcare. (We also saw this one on “broken promises” a lot in the spring, but it stopped just before the RNC.) Americans for Prosperity has been running this ad almost non-stop on local Iowa airwaves featuring a Canadian named Shona who sought healthcare in the US. (The YouTube link includes a 3-minute interview with Shona following the ad.) We did see this “positive” Romney ad just before the RNC convention, but it has since dropped out of circulation. I’d have to do more digging to find additional links, but basically, if I’m watching a local TV station (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX), I’ll see at least one anti-Obama ad per commercial break. Sometimes two back-to-back. Currently in circulation, there are at least three different anti-Obamacare ads, two debt/economy ads, and another “Obama failed” ad. The negativity is so thick, that it’s hard to watch local TV.

On the Democratic side, since the DNC Convention, we’ve been seeing a lot of this Bill Clinton ad on cable networks, including CNN, ESPN, and Comedy Central. This ad appears to be the Obama campaign’s answer to the Obamacare criticisms, though I’ve only seen it a couple of times. Also saw this one a few times recently. I wish I was seeing more of this one, but so far I’ve only stumbled across it on Hulu. Very little PAC advertising here from Democratic groups.

What’s interesting to me is the contrast between which channels are showing the ads. Almost all of the RNC/Romney ads are on local stations. Almost all of the Obama ads are on cable networks. Do you think this says something about the target demographics of each campaign? I don’t know enough about the relative costs of advertising on local vs. cable, so could money be the reason for the division?