Actress Kathy Bates might end up being one of the most important people in the Congressional District 6 race.
Her turn as “Matlock” is so popular, and hits the right voting demographic so solidly, that it’s one of the most expensive slots for political ads so far this year.
And this year, expect to see a lot of ads on your television, whether you’re a big fan of reboots or not.
Right now, two Super PACs — the Republican-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund and the Democrat boosters over at the House Majority PAC — have reserved more than 6,300 30-second ads to run on Tucson airwaves this fall to talk about Republican Congressman Juan Ciscomani and his Democratic challenger, JoAnna Mendoza.1
That’s hundreds of ads every week beginning in August at a cost of $4.4 million.
And that number will certainly climb much higher before the election is over.
JoAnna Mendoza and Juan Ciscomani
The political consultants we talked to said that reserving the ads now checks two entirely different boxes — locking in coveted time slots and securing lower rates before demand spikes.
But don’t assume these 30-second attack ads are cheap — even if you reserve the airtime now. One ad on CBS’s “Face the Nation” two weeks before the election cost the House Majority PAC a cool $1,200.
Other spots during prime time — commercial breaks for Matlock, Big Brother and Survivor — cost even more, with the CBS affiliate KOLD charging $1,480 per spot.
So if you were a fan of ads like this last year, you’re in luck.
The Democratic Super PAC announced that it would spend $272 million in TV and digital reservations this year. Unfortunately, we aren’t sure how much they plan on spending in Tucson.
But defeating Ciscomani is key to Democrats' plans to flip the House — so you can bet the Old Pueblo's local TV stations will be raking it in this year.
Last month, the Congressional Leadership Fund announced it plans to spend $153 million in its “first wave” of political ad buys, including $5.8 million in ads in Phoenix and another $4.3 million supporting Ciscomani.
The CLF has already reserved a total of roughly 3,400 ads at a cost of about $2.26 million.
Meanwhile, Democrats' House Majority PAC reserved a total of roughly 2,900 ads at a cost of about $2.15 million so far.
And that doesn’t even include digital advertising and those impossible-to-skip YouTube ads.
So if you're watching Netflix's ad-supported tier this fall, expect some weird tonal shifts from prestige drama to 30 seconds of congressional mudslinging and politicians walking along the border.
Digital advertising is much harder to track and doesn’t require reserving ad space months in advance.
Some social media companies track political ads, which is why we know that Americans for Prosperity just wrapped up spending approximately $2,500 to run roughly 150,000 impressions of a 30-second ad over the course of 14 days in Southern Arizona.
Beyond getting a good rate and a good time slot, SuperPACs have another reason to get involved early.
DJ Quinlan, a partner at Radar Strategies, noted that independent committees are barred from communicating directly with the candidates, so the publicly available ad reservations help campaigns figure out where to put their advertising dollars. Essentially, if they know their allies will have slots running for them during Matlock, the candidates can focus on getting the Jeopardy crowd locked down.
So enjoy the car commercials, weird pharmaceutical drug ads and spots for local attorneys while they last.
Because pretty soon, you'll be pining for a return to Lerner and Rowe Injury Attorneys ads.2
Case dismissed: The case against removing a 31-year-old DACA recipient Karla Toledo has been dismissed. Toledo had a hearing scheduled on Wednesday morning in Tucson immigration court, but the Department of Homeland Security filed a motion to dismiss her removal proceedings. Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva, who lobbied on behalf of Toledo, said she was “very happy for Karla and her family but ICE must be held accountable.”
Coming to an ad near you: Democratic congressional candidate JoAnna Mendoza once said she’d support decriminalizing sex work to help transgender people earn a living, the New York Post reports. The Post, a conservative tabloid, got ahold of a since-deleted video of an interview Mendoza did during a campaign for the state Legislature in 2020 with LGBTQ+ advocacy organization Equality Arizona in which she said she would support decriminalization because “we need to stop criminalizing people for their situations.”
A reporter’s perspective: Star reporter Emily Bregel dug into the reporting process for the story she wrote with Emily Hamer on the widespread use of solitary confinement at ICE detention centers. Bregel told KJZZ’s Lauren Gilger that they heard harrowing stories from 10 immigrants who spent significant time in solitary confinement, sometimes for infractions as minor as hanging their clothes on a bunk bed.
“She had fled Iran after she was basically kidnapped off the streets by government agents, held in a cold cell for days while she was violently interrogated and sexually assaulted. So, being basically exposed to a very similar situation in the country she fled to, that was another trauma for her,” Bregel said of an Iranian woman who was put in solitary confinement.
Taking on Trump: After keeping the details under wraps, County Attorney Laura Conover released a statement about suing the Trump administration to “stop the deconstruction of the Affordable Care Act to help preserve healthcare for thousands of Arizonans.” Pima would be the first county in the country to challenge the new rules in court, Conover said, noting that as county attorney, she represents the health department and other public health entities.
Your bond dollars at work: Some of the $480 million in bonds that voters approved for TUSD in 2023 is being spent on HVAC upgrades at Pueblo Gardens K-8 School, Vanessa Gongora reports for KGUN. Over the course of the summer, the district plans to upgrade HVAC systems at other schools, as well as upgrading the cooling systems at school kitchens. For now, kitchen staff at five schools are still dealing with swamp coolers.
Did you know reader-approved subscriptions have generated nearly all our revenue since 2023?
No cause for alarm: The sudden, unexplained drop in revenue from the Vehicle License Tax that freaked out Cochise County supervisors last week was actually just a clerical error, Matt Hickman reports for the Herald/Review. Somebody at the state government got their wires crossed. The actual revenue figure shows a 6% increase from last year, Supervisor Frank Antenori said after speaking with state officials.
Building and growing a political base in this politically charged digital landscape is not easy.
Whether you are using text messages, email pleas, knocking on doors or going old school by using the post office, all campaigns eventually need to reach out cold to politically active voters.
However, Erika Kirk and Turning Point USA may want to spend a little more time cleaning up their mailing list.
One of their recent mailers landed in the mailbox of well-known Tucson Democrat Ted Prezelski.
Other Tucson Democrats also reported getting mail from Erika.
We don’t want to lecture TPUSA on political messaging, but we’re pretty sure that Rule Number One is know your audience.
1 TV stations are required to report to the Federal Communications Commission when groups make political ad reservations, which is why we know every local news broadcast will have some kind of political ads in the 10 weeks before the election. Also worth noting: Reservations can be cancelled or modified as we get closer to when the ads are supposed to run.
2 Our former colleague at the Arizona Agenda, Rachel Leingang, once wrote about how Lerner and Rowe and other local companies get crowded out of the broadcast television ad spots due to the sheer volume of political ads.