Want to know why polling indicated Charlie Crist was about to pull off a narrow victory only to end up being defeated by Rick Scott? Well, yes, low turnout in South Florida had something to do with it, but the fact that Scott ended up pouring $13 million into his own campaign in the final weeks (despite saying he wouldn't) and was spending $1,200 a minute on TV ads in the final eight days of the campaign was a definite factor as well.
The Tampa Bay Times crunched the numbers, and that's exactly how much Scott was spending. They also got some inside scoop as the Crist campaign watched its narrow lead falter due to the TV ad barrage:
"Scott's (TV ad) advantage has a taken a real toll," warned Crist's data crunchers. "Our margin has declined by about a point a day since Monday ..."Over the past week, we've seen a real drop in support among white independents and over the past two weeks with Hispanics. Last week we led Scott by 9 points with white Indys, this week we trail with them by 8 points. We are now 4 points below our win number with Hispanics and continue to under-perform among white Democrats."
Scott was spending about twice as much as Crist on TV ads during the final days, and had already significantly outspent Crist during the earlier months of the campaign.
The final numbers on how much his campaign ended up spending are still not out, but it's estimated Scott may have topped $100 million including PAC money. The works out to about $35 for each of the 2,858,119 votes he received.
Whatever the case, Scott certainly beat his previous 2010 record of running the most expensive campaign in Florida history.
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