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On the Campaign Trail: TV is a Bang for the Buck

Around Virginia, the hottest primary on the ballot June 14 is the Republican contest in Hampton Roads. That’s where Republican incumbent Scott Rigell is stepping down after three terms in office.  One of the candidates in that primary is buying hundreds of thousands of dollars in television time.

Incumbent Republican Congressman Randy Forbes doesn’t live in the second congressional district. But he’s all over the airwaves there.

“He’s running a two-prong media campaign."

That’s Quentin Kidd at Christopher Newport University.

“A very positive kind of elevated TV campaign and a very negative hit-hard mailer and robo-call campaign."

Forbes has bought about a thousand thirty second spots. That’s more than $300,000 worth of TV ads that talk about his time in Congress and accomplishments in office. Kidd says the campaign that’s showing up in mailboxes, though, is a different story.

“He’s done a couple of negative fliers on Scott Taylor calling out a record of speeding tickets and things like that."

Stephen Farnsworth at the University of Mary Washington says buying TV ads is usually a safe bet. 

“The way to reach younger people is obviously social media. But the way to reach the highest likelihood of voting citizens, television is still a good bang for your buck."

So far, Forbes has raised about a million dollars. That’s far more than his two competitors in the race. Delegate Scott Taylor has raised $100,000 and attorney Pat Cardwell has raised about $30,000.

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