Iowa, Political Ads | featured news

All the political attention might be focused on Republicans or even Tropical Storm Isaac, but that's not stopping President Obama from asking for more campaign money. In a new fundraising e-mail today geared to the swing state of Iowa, Obama says he's losing "the air war" and needs $5 or more from donors to pay for more campaign commercials.

While nationally the two rivals are locked in a dead heat, in 12 expected battleground states — Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin — Obama leads by eight points in the survey.

President Obama, Republican challenger Mitt Romney, and their allies have already spent $87 million on TV ads, the Associated Press reports -- most of it in nine battleground states. They are, not surprisingly, nine toss-up states that will likely decide the election: Florida, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Nevada and New Hampshire.

President Obama's re-election campaign has taken out big ads on the website of the Des Moines Register that dig at Republicans on caucus day... "The Republican candidates are leaving Iowa. But their terrible plans are here to stay," proclaims the ad, which takes you to a page to sign up with the Obama-Biden re-election campaign.

As Iowa Republicans take in the final appeals before tonight’s caucus voting, one major lesson the candidates will take away: Going negative works. An estimated $5.8 million was spent on television advertising in Iowa through Dec. 30, with $3.7 million financing negative ads, according to most recent data available from New York-based Kantar Media’s CMAG, a company that tracks advertising.

A "super PAC" associated with Republican Mitt Romney's presidential campaign launched a $3.1 million ad buy in Iowa on Thursday, starting with an ad attacking President Obama's job-creation record and touting Romney's.

Republican candidates have been test-driving themes and previewing attack lines online for months, foreshadowing the TV ad war that's all but certain to start soon in Iowa, New Hampshire and other early voting states.