Fact Checker: Iowa group says negative campaign ads breed voter apathy

Introduction

'In 2014, record amounts of money poured into Iowa elections. Outside groups spent record amounts on negative ads. That same year, a record number of Iowa voters didn't return mailed ballots.”

Source of claim: Iowa Pays the Price, a bipartisan organization formed this summer to tell Iowans about the influence of outsiders on Iowa politics, made the statements in a two-minute video on its website and YouTube.

Analysis

Iowa Pays the Price asked MapLight to analyze the amount of money spent in Iowa's 2014 midterm election. MapLight is a nonpartisan research organization located in Berkeley, Calif., that compiles data from the Federal Elections Commission and other sources to show money's influence on politics.

MapLight reported Iowa candidates running for the U.S. House and Senate, and their supporting organizations, spent $112 million in the 2014 election, up from $26.1 million in 2010.

The analysis showed nearly all of the increased spending in Iowa came from outside groups - which spent $74 million in 2014, up from less than $5 million in 2010. 'Outside” money refers to a person or group that spends money without coordinating with candidates' committees.

A Nov. 20 report by The Gazette and seven other Iowa news outlets, including the Des Moines Register and the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, bolsters the numbers collected by MapLight. The Iowa media review showed the two candidates for Iowa's contentious U.S. Senate race and their surrogates spent nearly $41.3 million on television ads alone during the 2014 election cycle.

Throughout the campaign, the Republican and Democratic senatorial committees were the biggest ad-buyers for their respective candidates, Joni Ernst and Bruce Braley. Braley's campaign paid for about 18 percent of ads that aired on his behalf, while Ernst paid for about 15 percent of the ads in her favor.

That outside spending helped make the U.S. Senate race the most expensive non-presidential election in state history.

Now let's tackle the negativity claim.

The Wesleyan Media Project reported in October 2014 that Iowa was among the 'nine least positive U.S. Senate races” with 50.4 percent of ads being negative in tone. About 35.5 percent of the ads were positive and 14.1 percent contrasted one candidate with another, the group reported.

The Wesleyan Media Project, overseen by three professors, also reported the share of positive ads in U.S. Senate races across the country in 2014 was lower than in previous cycles. Which bring us to the video's last claim, that a record number of Iowa voters didn't return mailed ballots. The implication is voters were so upset by attack ads sponsored by outside groups they decided not to vote.

'As individuals, we feel powerless to push back, so we stop trying,” says a voice on the video.

The number of absentee ballots requested in midterm elections Iowa more than doubled from 242,385 in 2006 to 530,494 in 2014, according to the Iowa Secretary of State's Office.

Although the percentage of ballots returned for counting remained relatively stable - between 87 percent and 91 percent in the last three midterm elections - the actual number of unreturned ballots did increase each year because of the overall bumps in absentee voting.

Conclusion

Iowa Pays the Price is correct in saying the state saw record campaign advertising in 2014, with most of it paid for by outside groups and much of it negative. Anyone who lived in the Corridor at the time remembers the near-constant mudslinging. We give these first two claims an A for accuracy.

While it may be technically true the number of unreturned absentee ballots in Iowa was at a record high in 2014, this is only because a record number of people requested absentee ballots. The percentage of returned absentee ballots has been fairly stable since 2006.

Iowa Pays the Price gets a D for this misleading claim.

Overall, we give the video a B.

Criteria

The Fact Checker team checks statements made by an Iowa political candidate/office holder or a national candidate/office holder about Iowa, or in advertisements that appear in our market. Claims must be independently verifiable. We give statements grades from A to F based on accuracy and context.

If you spot a claim you think needs checking, email us at factchecker@sourcemedia.net.

This Fact Checker was researched and written by Erin Jordan

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White paper: http://iowapaystheprice.org/white-paper-iowa-campaign-spending-reaches-historic-levels/