The Five Candidates Cruz Beat Spent $72.1 Million in New Hampshire. Cruz Spent $580K.
There’s a reason Ted Cruz didn’t spend a lot of money in New Hampshire. It wasn’t because he had given up on him having an impact there even though most in the media had. It wasn’t because he didn’t think that the vote was an important one. It was because he’s smart enough to hold back when others are going all in. In essence, Ted Cruz let them burn through their cash while he looked at the long game.
To place an unexpected third in New Hampshire, Ted Cruz and his super PACs combined to spend $580,000. This is less than Rand Paul or Lindsey Graham spent before dropping out. It’s less than Carly Fiorina spent on a state where she expected to get less than 5 percent of the vote. It’s even less than Donald Trump spent… much less. His $3.7 million on top of constant free media coverage meant that Trump was in every household multiple times in the week leading up to the primary.
John Kasich, the other candidate who beat Cruz by placing second, did so by spending over 20x as much. It was a strong night for Kasich who wasn’t a blip on the radar in Iowa, but it also cost him the rest of the campaign barring a miracle; it took $12.1 million to get him second in New Hampshire, leaving him with less than $3 million cash on hand. Unless he can turn this second place finish into an unprecedented fundraising run, his campaign won’t have enough cash to survive into March. Pundits will paint his finish as a strong play for him, but he really needed to finish 1st to justify using nearly 80 percent of his campaign funds to earn three delegates.
Meanwhile, Cruz has the most cash on hand and the second most super PAC money. As the other candidates proved in New Hampshire, cash isn’t everything. Jeb Bush, who finished fourth, spent $36.1 million. Marco Rubio outspent Cruz nearly 30:1 in New Hampshire to finish fifth. Chris Christie, who will likely drop out, spent even more than Rubio to finish sixth.
All of this points to two possibilities for the race ahead. Trump and Cruz are leading and have a victory notched on their belt, but perhaps more importantly the primaries and caucuses in the next month favor them to remain on top. This means that the Establishment can embrace Cruz as the only candidate that can defeat Trump or they can try to sort through their mess and unite behind one of the Establishment candidates. Rubio was supposed to be that unifying force, but his failure at the New Hampshire debate and the subsequent primary make him harder for them to back. Bush still has money but doesn’t seem to be able to muster any real momentum. Kasich is nearly broke. Christie is going to drop out.
The Establishment has no valid choice.
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Check this out! This is how much each campaign spends per vote received pic.twitter.com/Di8skf5VAl
— Fox & Friends First (@FoxFriendsFirst) February 10, 2016
♫ You Got to know when to hold them ♫ No when to fold them ♫ No when to walk away ♫ No when to run ♫ and Cruz is running a smart fiscal campaign!
I really thought he would win in first place last night even boldly boasted he would, but based on what I see here with these numbers he was the biggest winner and I think he was is pleased with the outcome.
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