John McCain has taken the lead in the state of Missouri, going from being behind Barack Obama by two points to gaining a seven point lead. One reason could be that McCain aired three times as many campaign ads as Obama has in Missouri.
Round two of the polling, and shown by Survey USA, shows that John McCain when up against Barack Obama now holds a seven point lead over Barack Obama with 50 percent to 43 percent.
One of the reasons that people are speculating could account for this net gain of 9 percentage points is the fact that John McCain's campaign has aired three times the amount of campaign ads in Missouri as Obama has.
McCain’s campaign outspent and out-aired Obama in every major media market in Missouri, including St. Louis, from June 19 through last Wednesday. McCain held a town-hall forum in Springfield, Mo. on June 18.
McCain spent $224,696 for 791 spots that ran on local broadcast stations around Missouri. That compares to $115,054 spent by the Obama campaign to air 212 spots.
McCain’s more aggressive spending comes as both campaigns say that Missouri is among their targeted states as they head into the remaining four months before the Nov. 4 general election.
Some are calling these results curious with the amount of personal fundraising that Obama has been able to achieve and wondering why McCain can and is outspending Obama in a state that was believed to be a battleground state, but as was recently reported, while Obama does out raise McCain in personal campaign contributions, the Republican National Committee, more than makes up for that by having 13 times the amount of funds in the bank as the Democratic National Committee does.
That levels the playing field as well as offers John McCain the opportunity to fight in states thats are considered battleground states.
Also what stands out seems to be the core audience that the Obama and McCain ads are appealing to.
Both also seem to be targeting women and the elderly. Both campaigns are running spots on Oprah Winfrey’s talk show, the Wheel of Fortune game show and Entertainment Tonight, a celebrity gossip show.
As well as those core audiences it might be telling to some that Obama is also running ads during the top prime time show "Law and Order", and McCain is running his ads during Rachael Ray’s show, as well as the numerous courtroom shows, such as “Judge Judy” and “The People’s Court", which seems to suggest that McCain is trying to appeal to women in large part, which is the area his demographics say he needs to win over.
It bears noting, just as an end note, that Missouri is known as a bellwether state that has "picked the winner of every presidential election except one in the past 100 years — in 1956, when Dwight Eisenhower defeated Adlai Stevenson."
That does not mean that they cannot pick the loser, it does not mean that they cannot be wrong, it is simply a piece of trivia that could or could not be indicative of the tight race ahead between John McCain and Barack Obama.
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