Jeb Bush loses TV ad edge to Marco Rubio

Down in the polls, Jeb Bush was supposed to find refuge in his financial superiority. But just as his campaign enters the critical primary phase, the fallen front-runner is about to get outgunned on the airwaves by the man his campaign views as its chief rival: Sen Marco Rubio (R-FL). According to media buyers and a Politco review of TV ad purchase data, Bush and his allies are on pace to spend $5 million more than Team Rubio on broadcast, cable and radio ads through the first four voting states – but for that sum, they will put fewer ads on the airwaves. That’s because the vast majority of Bush’s ads are paid for by his super PAC -- roughly 85 percent for Bush versus only 40 percent for Sen Rubio – and super PACs get far less bang for their buck.

“A dollar is not a dollar,” explained Evan Tracey, a veteran political ad buyer at National Media, a Republican media firm. “Candidate dollars go much farther than super PAC dollars go.” In Iowa and New Hampshire, for example, super PACs are confronting ad rates that can soar to nearly 1,000 percent more than the rates charged of candidates -- an enormous markup that is sapping much of the punch from the $103 million Bush and his allies had amassed by mid-2015.