Written by Meaghan Walsh
As 2023 comes to a close, the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries are right around the corner and Presidential advertising is in full swing. The 2024 Presidential race has already seen thousands of ad airings around the country. While incumbent President Joe Biden has largely focused on his administration’s accomplishments, GOP Presidential hopefuls have utilized attack ads against Biden and their Republican opponents. Our analysis focuses on the candidates and groups behind this year’s Presidential attack ads and how each major candidate’s strategy differs from their opponents.
Overall, incumbent President Joe Biden is the clear favorite target in negative or attack broadcast advertising in the 2024 Presidential race. As the presumptive Democratic nominee, Republican candidates and groups have had 39.1K airings attacking Biden. Ron DeSantis has received the second most attack ads among Presidential candidates (13.1K), followed by Donald Trump (8.3K), and Nikki Haley (4.8K). In the ads attacking Biden, the top issue mentioned is the economy. In those targeting DeSantis and Trump, character is the most popular issue, while ads attacking Haley mainly focus on China.
Sixty-six percent of Republican Presidential attack ads from candidates and their affiliated PACs target President Biden while only 3% go after Trump. Advertisers supporting DeSantis, Haley, and Christie have targeted the current Republican frontrunner. Meanwhile, only 2% of all pro-Biden ad airings are attack ads, and all target Trump.
Within the Republican primary, Trump and Haley have targeted DeSantis while Florida’s governor has primarily attacked Haley, and to a much lesser degree Trump. Meanwhile, in New Hampshire, both Trump and Haley’s affiliated PACs just released their first attack ads against one other. The only Republican candidate to target negative ads exclusively towards Trump is Chris Christie. In fact, Christie recently released an ad in New Hampshire highlighting his direct attacks against Trump and criticized Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley for going after each other rather than the former President.
One Republican candidate even chose to defend Trump and refer to him in a positive manner in his broadcast advertising. In an ad airing in New Hampshire, Vivek Ramaswamy called Donald Trump’s indictment a “politically motivated prosecution” and asked the Manhattan District Attorney to “drop these corrupt charges.” Additionally, in an ad airing primarily in Iowa, his old piano teacher refers to Ramaswamy as a “true conservative…in the same category with Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.”
When examining the 31K broadcast airings among the major Presidential candidates and their PACs, the difference in messaging strategies between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is striking. Only 2% of Biden and his allies’ ads are attack ads, consistent with the strategies of past incumbents in the off-year . Instead, his messaging largely focuses on his accomplishments in energy, the economy, and healthcare. Biden has only run two negative ads against Trump, one in English airing in Michigan, and one in Spanish airing in Arizona and Nevada. The English ad features Donald Trump on a golf course and discusses jobs, taxation, and wages. Meanwhile, Trump and his aligned PACs are airing nearly 80% attack ads to 20% positive ads. His negative ads are split between targeting Joe Biden, Ron DeSantis, and more recently, Nikki Haley. However, a recent positive ad airing predominately in Iowa highlighted his strong relationship with the military.
Looking at the broadcast advertising tone of the 95K broadcast airings supporting major Republican candidates, Vivek Ramaswamy is the only candidate currently running an exclusively positive messaging campaign. Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley are running mostly positive campaigns, Ron DeSantis by a factor of about 60-40 and Haley by 65-35. Chris Christie, however, has run a largely negative campaign with nearly 70% negative ads to 30% positive.
Overall, current candidates, apart from Donald Trump and Chris Christie, are focusing on a more positive campaign message in their broadcast advertising. When Republican candidates and their affiliated groups have decided to go negative this year, however, Joe Biden is largely the focus of their attacks as opposed to Donald Trump. Despite Trump's large lead in the polls, he is largely emerging unscathed in planned messaging among his Republican counterparts. Will his Republican challengers change their strategy ahead of Iowa and New Hampshire? Follow us on X (formerly Twitter) to find out!
To learn about political ad spending happening in the GOP Primary, check out our blog analyzing the spending and messaging of the GOP candidates who qualified for the fourth debate.
