"Millions against Manchin": How West Virginia has become the strangest battleground state
Ed Morrissey Dec 23, 2021 12:01 PM ET
Alternate headline: Joe Manchin knows how to bring home the media bacon! Punchbowl keeps tabs on political spending in key states, and claims that political activists have spent at least $10 million in West Virginia to either influence Manchin, bully him, or prepare the ground for a 2024 challenge to the incumbent Democrat.
What have progressives gotten for the cash? Not much, as Manchin has largely stuck to his positions regardless, but Mountain State TV and radio stations must be loving this:
Over the last year, we’ve noticed a big chunk of issue ads targeting Manchin back home. The reasons here are obvious: He’s the critical Democratic vote on nearly every issue that comprises President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda: everything from voting rights to the Build Back Better Act, to nominations and more.
We should note that buying airtime in most of the West Virginia media markets is cheap compared to bigger population centers – in other words, $10 million goes a long way. Furthermore, 2021 was not an election year, so the airwaves aren’t exactly packed with ads. And, on top of that, we only calculated ads that were directly targeting Manchin. We noticed a number of other spots that were obliquely about Manchin, but we decided to leave those out. These totals were compiled by our friends at AdImpact at our request.
The ads touched on a wide range of issues. They’ve targeted Manchin on filibuster reform, BBB, the For the People Act, David Chipman’s nomination as ATF director, his own Freedom to Vote Act, paid family and medical leave, child care, home care, rising inflation and more.
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https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2021/12/23/millions-against-manchin-how-west-virginia-has-become-the-strangest-battleground-state-n437389
