According to Advertising Analytics, Buttigieg, the eventual winner, spent a total of $6.1 million on Iowa TV ads in the fourth quarter last year, more than doubling Warren’s outlay of $2.8 million.
On Wednesday, Warren canceled $216,000 of ads from two South Carolina markets slated to run in the final days before the Feb. 29 primary. That’s in addition to the $327,490 in cuts she made in ad spending in the state last week.
The third reason for Warren’s struggles stems from how she’s tried to rebound from her diminished standing. Late last year, Warren made her own bid to become the “unity” candidate. She returned to her original focus on ending corruption and avoided attacking her rivals, hoping that her broad favorability with Democrats -- even those for whom she isn’t the top choice -- would lead them back to her.
“Being smart means not going into a race against Donald Trump with us firing in all directions,” Warren said Monday in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
‘A Fighter’
But that effort, too, has run into problems. Warren’s image as a strident liberal who regularly calls herself “a fighter” doesn’t translate naturally to a profile of a party unifier prepared to bridge left and center. She’s also been thwarted by the refusal of the presidential field to winnow. The muddle coming out of Iowa and the recent resurgence of Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar suggest that no top candidates are likely to drop out soon, forestalling a scenario where Warren is the bridge candidate between a centrist and a socialist.
Warren also relishes wrangling with Wall Street bankers, who openly feared her winning the White House. A number of top financiers took to the airwaves and social media to criticize her, worried that she’d be more effective at reining in their personal and professional fortunes.
Warren’s focus now, her strategists say, is to try to endure for as long as possible in hopes that Sanders and Buttigieg falter as they undergo the intense scrutiny that accompanies front-runner status. In the Feb. 7 Democratic debate, she also stepped up her courtship of black voters critical in South Carolina and Super Tuesday states, whose support may be newly attainable following Joe Biden’s collapse.
But Warren’s survival will ultimately hinge on a strategic decision made early on that will either prove to be her salvation — or force her out of the race. Powered by a strong grassroots fund-raising operation, she built one of the largest national organizing programs of any campaign, encompassing more than 1,000 staff members across 31 states and the District of Columbia, according to a memo from her campaign manager, Roger Lau.
Super Tuesday
That organizing effort is focused on the upcoming March 3 Super Tuesday states. “We expect this to be a long nomination fight and have built our campaign to sustain well past Super Tuesday and stay resilient no matter what breathless media narratives come when voting begins,” Lau wrote.
That operation could deliver a critical boost to Warren in the weeks ahead. But given her total dependence on small donors, the cost of paying such a large staff will be difficult to maintain if she doesn’t soon improve her showing. Federal Election Commission reports show that Warren spent $4.5 million in December on salary and payroll taxes — a barebones estimate of what it costs per month to keep her staff employed.
“If after the first or second contest your donors are saying that’s it,” says Galdieri, the Saint Anselm College professor, “if your fund-raising emails are just getting no response, it’s very difficult to continue.”
--With assistance from Bill Allison.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.