Romney Campaign Memo: Obama's Negative Campaigning Can't Buy Him Love

The Mitt Romney campaign today released a memo that shows a narrowing campaign. The memo says that at this point in the presidential campaign four years ago, Barack Obama led John McCain in the Real Clear Politics poll average, 47% to 42.5%. Today’s race is much tighter, with Obama’s lead down to46.8% to 44.4%, or just a 2.4% overall lead.

The narrowing comes after the Obama campaign has heavily outspent the Romney campaign. According to the memo, the Obama campaign has spent $51.4 million on ads since April 10 — the date Rick Santorum suspended his GOP primary campaign — while Romney has run just $22.7 million in ads. More than half of the Obama total has been spent running negative ads. During the three months since the two candidates have been going head to head, and Obama has outspent Romney by more than two to one, the race has gone from a 5.3% advantage down to a 2.4% advantage. The memo also notes that several recent national polls have found the race to be within the margin of error.

The memo concludes: “President Obama’s campaign will never have a more substantial advertising advantage than it has had over the past few weeks, yet there is no evidence to suggest that the ballot has moved. If throwing the kitchen sink at Gov. Romney while leveraging a two-to-one ad-spending advantage doesn’t move numbers for the President, that’s got to tell you something about the state of the electorate: Voters are frustrated with President Obama’s failure to keep his promises from the 2008 campaign and don’t truly believe the next four years will be any different from the last three and a half. The Obama campaign’s misleading advertising can’t make up for the failed policies of this Administration.”

The one aspect of the race that has changed dramatically since Romney clinched the GOP nomination, is that Romney has outraised the Obama campaign for two consecutive month. Romney outraised Obama by $18 million in May and by $35 million in June, for a total advantage of $53 million across those two months.