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Vivek Ramaswamy slams tv ads as campaign stops showing them in Iowa and New Hampshire
Vivek Ramaswamy‘s presidential campaign has not run a television advertisement in the early contest states of Iowa or New Hampshire in over a week, and the candidate vying for the 2024 Republican nomination is now slamming spending on presidential television ads as “idiotic.”
Ramaswamy on Tuesday posted on X that presidential TV spending had a “low ROI,” or return on investment, and “a trick that political consultants use to bamboozle candidates who suffer from low IQ.”
“We’re doing it differently. Spending $$ in a way that follows data…apparently a crazy idea in US politics. Big surprise coming on Jan 15,” Ramaswamy posted.
Tricia McLaughin, a spokesperson for the campaign, confirmed to CBS News last week that the operation has not run television ads in Iowa or New Hampshire since Sunday, Dec. 17.
The move could ring some alarm bells as campaigns approach a critical juncture with less than 30 days until the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary and Ramaswamy specifically seeks to outperform low expectations indicated by current poll numbers which show him drastically trailing his opponents in both states. The Iowa caucus will be held on Jan. 15 and the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 23.
Former President Donald Trump, who leads the Republican primary field, responded to Ramaswamy’s campaign going dark on TV ads on Tuesday. He posted on his social media platform that Ramaswamy “will, I am sure, Endorse me. But Vivek is a good man, and is not done yet!”
Scott Olson / Getty Images
McLaughlin said on Friday that the amount of ad spending will stay the same and the shift is centered around their internal data that suggests Ramaswamy voters are not traditional broadcast television consumers.
“We are focused on bringing out the voters we’ve identified—best way to reach them is using addressable advertising, mail, text, live calls and doors to communicate with our voters on Vivek’s vision for America, making their plan to caucus and turning them out,” McLaughlin said. “As you know, this isn’t what most campaigns look like. We have intentionally structured this way so that we have [the] ability to be nimble and hyper targeted in our ad spending.”
The campaign in early November announced an eight-figure advertising buy in Iowa and New Hampshire and toward the end of the same month, they released a television ad featuring Ramaswamy’s piano teacher that aired in both states.
And despite his recent rhetoric, Ramaswamy said in August that he would “need to be on TV in Iowa, New Hampshire, in the early states, and Nevada and elsewhere to compete.”
A Cambridge University study published in 2021 determined that the primary impact of political television advertising is persuading voters which candidate to vote for by providing information rather than instead of mobilizing voters to turn out to the polls.
According to the study, evidence suggests that because voters have more familiarity with presidential candidates, the likelihood of being persuaded via television ads “should more strongly influence views of down-ballot candidates than views of presidential candidates.”
Howard Hubbard, the Iowa Davis County chair for the Ramaswamy campaign, said that Ramaswamy is attracting a younger audience that may consume ads on social media in lieu of television.
The 38-year-old Ohio entrepreneur has made a huge push to garner the support of young people, including campaigning on college campuses with open bars and doing TikToks and podcast interviews throughout his campaign.
“I honestly think that he’s gonna get back to it. I at least I hope he does, because that’s the only way he’s going to reach some of the older crowd,” Hubbard said.
According to ad tracking firm AdImpact, Ramaswamy’s campaign has spent $1,865,039 on advertising in Iowa and $1,307,402 in New Hampshire so far and much of the money has come from the biotech entrepreneur’s personal funds.
As for the other GOP contenders, according to AdImpact, Nikki Haley’s campaign has outspent others in Iowa with $4,512,174. Trump trails with $4,227,139 and DeSantis has spent $2,697,241, compared to Asa Hutchinson’s $474 in advertising spending.
In New Hampshire, DeSantis has only spent $896 on digital ads, and Haley has spent $3 174,102. Trump’s campaign has spent 2,911,808.
The world’s oldest mummies have been around longer than the mummified pharaohs of Egypt and their ornate tombs — but the ravages of time, human development and climate change are putting these relics at risk.
Chile’s Atacama Desert was once home to the Chincorro people, an ancient population that began mummifying their dead 5,000 years ago, two millennia before the Egyptians did, according to Bernando Arriaza, a professor at the University of Tarapaca.
The arid desert has preserved mummified remains and other clues in the environment that give archaeologists information about how the Chincorro people once lived.
The idea to mummify bodies likely came from watching other remains naturally undergo the process amid the desert’s dry conditions. The mummified bodies were also decorated with reed blankets, clay masks, human hair and more, according to archaeologists.
While UNESCO has designated the region as a World Heritage Site, the declaration may not save all of the relics. Multiple museums, including the Miguel de Azapa Archaeological Museum in the ancient city of Arica, put the Chincorro culture on display. Some mummies and other relics are safely ensconced in those climate-controlled exhibits, but the remains still hidden in the arid desert remain at risk.
“If we have an increase in sea surface temperatures, for example, across the coast of northern Chile, that would increase atmospheric humidity,” said Claudio LaTorre, a paleo-ecologist with the Catholic University of Chile. “And that in turn would generate decomposition, (in) places where you don’t have decomposition today, and you would lose the mummies themselves.”
Other clues that archaeologists can find in the environment may also be lost.
“Human-induced climate change is one aspect that we’re really worried about, because it’ll change a number of different aspects that are forming the desert today,” said LaTorre.
Arriaza is working to raise awareness about the mummies, hoping that that will lead to even more preservation.
“It’s a big, big challenge because you need to have resources,” Arriaza said. “It’s everybody’s effort to a common goal, to preserve the site, to preserve the mummies.”
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NEW YORK – The man accused of killing three people when drove drunk into a crowd on the Lower East Side on July 4th was arraigned on a host of charges Saturday.
Daniel Hyden of Monmouth Junction, N.J. is charged with aggravated vehicular homicide, aggravated vehicular assault, manslaughter, assault and operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated charges. Hyden was driving with a suspended license, prosecutors said.
According to prosecutors, Hyden, 44, drove a Ford F-150 pickup truck into the crowd at Corlears Hook Park just before 9 p.m. local time. He allegedly ran through a stop sign at the intersection of Water and Cherry Streets, drove up onto the sidewalk, slammed through the chain link fence, and into the crowd.
Eleven people were killed or injured, prosecutors said. The three people killed have been identified as Lucille Pinkney, 59, and her son Herman Pinkney, 38, and Ana Morel, 43. Another person was critically injured, and seven others hospitalized. The youngest victim was 11, according to prosecutors.
Responding police officers say they found Hyden on the ground next to the driver’s-side door, wearing pants but no shirt or shoes. He had bloodshot eyes, was stumbling and there was “a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage on his breath.”
“I hope we get justice”
Photos provided
On Friday, Family members of the victims returned to the scene, some breaking down in tears.
“I hope we get justice for my brother and my mother,” Diamond Pinkney said. “Herman, I love you. I’m going to do you proud.”
“We’re all devastated with this. It breaks my heart, and I’m so sad about it,” neighbor Nereida Garcia said.