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Final results: Summary results | Town resultsThe BasicsThe New Hampshire primary is a mainstay in American electoral politics. Every four years, voters gather to help determine the Republican and/or Democratic nominee for President. While the state only has 12 electoral votes in 2012 (normally it’s 24, but the Republican National Committee penalized the state party for moving up the event date), the primary’s position as one of the earliest contests gives the state out-sized influence over the nomination process.Only the Iowa caucuses come before New Hampshire’s primary. Traditionally, New Hampshire’s broad-based primary contest has been seen as a counter-weight to Iowa’s more drawn-out caucus process, which tends to draw a smaller core of party faithful. In the case of the 2012 Republican race, New Hampshire’s electorate is seen to represent the more libertarian-leaning, fiscally conservative wing of the party, while Iowa voters are seen as representing the socially conservative wing of the GOP base.N.H. Primary summary provided by StateImpact - NH reporter, Amanda Loder

Buying A Political Ad? Let A SuperPAC Foot The Bill

There has been one constant throughout the GOP campaign — Mitt Romney and the superPAC that supports him have vastly outspent his rivals.

An NPR analysis of various campaign data finds a new trend is now apparent — most of the TV ads supporting Romney have been bought by that superPAC, Restore Our Future, while Romney's campaign is spending little on TV.

If you add up the numbers, the bottom line looks like this: Romney and the superPAC backing him outspent Newt Gingrich and the superPAC backing him by more than 5-to-1 in advance of last Tuesday's primaries in Alabama and Mississippi.

They outspent Rick Santorum and his superPAC by more than 15-to-1. That's based on filings to the Federal Election Commission, and data complied by Kantar CMAG and reported byThe Washington Post.

Saturating The Air Waves

In Alabama the Romney campaign spent just a fraction of what Restore Our Future did on TV, and in Mississippi the Romney campaign spent no money on TV ads, while the superPAC bought $1.3 million in TV time. In effect, the Romney campaign has let Restore Our Future become its TV advertising arm.

"It's a very interesting development in how campaigns, I think, are going to be run in the future, and I think the likely outcome of what we're seeing is that the quote independent superPACs are really going to become the major mechanism of delivering TV advertising," said Donald Tobin, a campaign finance law expert at The Ohio State University.

Tobin says by leaving it up to the superPAC to handle and pay for the TV ad buys, the campaign itself can focus on other things, such as paying for staff and travel, office and organizing expenses.

And it's not just Romney's campaign that is allowing superPACs to handle the ad buys. Gingrich's campaign spent about a 10th of what the superPAC backing him, Winning Our Future, did on ad buys, such as a radio spot that ran in Alabama.

The Santorum campaign also spent no money on TV in Alabama or Mississippi, while the Red White and Blue Fund, the superPAC that backs him, spent some $220,000 in those states on ads. The most recent adis currently running in Illinois ahead of the state's primary on Tuesday.

The superPACs have advantages over campaign organizations: Primarily they can accept unlimited donations, allowing a few wealthy backers to give large sums, something tailor-made for TV campaigns.

Does Saturation Enable A Win?

And, despite being hugely outspent in Alabama and Mississippi, Santorum actually won those states, while Romney finished third in both places.

"One of the things that I think political scientists are going to look at is — is there a saturation point where you know there's just a law of diminishing returns ... you've reached everybody and they know your message and so shouting louder and longer doesn't necessarily help," Tobin says. He says he thinks there's an obvious lesson in Santorum's wins — piling on the most TV ads doesn't guarantee a victory.

Still, that's not slowing Restore Our Future; the superPAC has already spent more than $2 million on ads in Illinois supporting Romney ahead of the primary; the superPAC backing Santorum has spent just over $300,000.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

NPR News' Brian Naylor is a correspondent on the Washington Desk. In this role, he covers politics and federal agencies.
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