With tens of hundreds of thousands, Ron DeSantis' marketing campaign is dominating the airwaves in race for Governor – Florida Politics

With Hurricane Ian bearing down on Florida, political promoting could decelerate within the coming days. That may put a pause on what has thus far been an amazing benefit in TV this month for Gov. Ron DeSantis over Charlie Crist within the race for Florida Governor.

Between Sept. 5-18, 2022, there have been greater than 13,000 broadcasts touting DeSantis’ candidacy for re-election, vs. simply 881 adverts with a pro-Crist message. That’s a 15-1 discrepancy, based on a weblog put up on the Wesleyan Media Project.

DeSantis additionally dominated social media throughout that two-week interval, spending $470,000 on Fb and Google, whereas Crist spent $45,000. Crist is a former Republican Governor, Lawyer Basic and Schooling Commissioner earlier than he turned a Democrat and Congressman. (Crist not too long ago resigned his U.S. Home seat to marketing campaign for governor.)

DeSantis emergence as a nationwide determine has helped him increase an astonishing $189 million up to now, based on OpenSecrets. That breaks the previous gubernatorial fundraising record held by Meg Whitman, the former eBay and Hewlett Packard CEO, who raised $178 million in her unsuccessful bid for Governor of California in 2010.  The major difference between those two campaigns is that Whitman’s campaign was mostly self-financed.

Crist has raised just under $20 million, also according to OpenSecrets.

Florida’s Division of Elections show that the Friends of Ron DeSantis committee has totaled $187.1 million, which includes the most recent filing period of Sept. 10-16, 2022. Of that amount, DeSantis has spent $81.9 million.

The Florida Governor has emerged as a national figure in GOP politics over the past year and is considered a top candidate for the Republican nomination for President in 2024, particularly if former President Donald Trump does not run. Yet despite his overwhelming lead in fundraising and his subsequent dominance on the airwaves, the Governor’s race remains within single digits, according to recent polls.

A USA Today/Suffolk University poll released last week shows DeSantis up by seven percentage points, 48%-41%. A Susquehanna Polling and Research survey taken earlier this month had DeSantis up by four points, 47%-43%.

DeSantis defeated Democrat Andrew Gillum in the race for Florida Governor by less than half a percentage point in the 2018 gubernatorial election, a margin so close that it triggered an automatic machine recount. Since 2018 though, Republicans have superseded Democrats in party registration in Florida for the first time ever, and that lead continues to grow.

According to data published on the state’s Division of Elections website last week, Republicans now have a near 270,000 voter advantage over Democrats. Between July 25 and August 31, Republicans had a net gain of more than 40,000 voters over Democrats.

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Mitch Perry reporting via Florida Politics.

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