Marco Rubio’s super PAC will pre-buy a series of television ads in the first three nominating states, an early move designed to give Rubio an edge in the heated ad wars, a source familiar with the plan said.
The Florida senator and GOP presidential candidate’s super PAC will place early ad-buys today in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina for television spots to air later this year. The source did not reveal how much the pre-buys would be with except to say the sum is “significant.”
While super PACs and campaigns are not allowed to coordinate on strategy or expenditures, it’s clear Rubio’s allies are following his campaign’s lead. The Rubio campaign is in the process of placing early airtime reservations worth more than $10 million.
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The super PAC, called the Conservative Solutions PAC, raised $16 million in the first half of 2015, so it certainly has some money to burn. But reserving airtime early can be a tricky business – something the Rubio campaign discovered when a number of television stations refused to pre-book their advertising. Rubio’s super PAC does not expect to face the same challenges.
Still, putting those requests in early can be cost effective, and it could make it more difficult for television stations to bump the super PAC’s ads to a less favorable time slot as the airwaves grow more crowded. That appears to be the super PAC’s strategy. The source familiar with the buy said the group is making the reservations now so it has the access to the best inventory in late 2015 ahead of the nominating contests in each of the three states.
