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Now the New Hampshire primary has come and gone. The vote totals, from CNN were: 93,617 for Obama 100,541 for Clinton 43,432 for Edwards 11,735 for Richardson 67,749 for Romney 79,350 for McCain 18,413 for Giuliani 16,361 for Paul 23,811 for Huckabee These are totals with 89% of precincts reporting for both sides - I gotta get up in the morning. I'll leave the effect of the last 11% to all you political hoot owls. The delegate count used in the calculations below matches CNN's figures. On the Democratic side, delegates are awarded proportionally with a minimum requirement of 15% to get delegates. On the Republican side, the delegates are awarded proportionally with a minimum requirement of 10%. New Hampshire has 22 pledged Democratic delegates and 12 pledged Republican delegates. From Graniteprof, here is what the candidates have spent on TV ads: Obama: $2.1 million Hillary Clinton: $1.65 million John Edwards: $1.2 million Bill Richardson: $700,000 Mitt Romney: $3.9 million John McCain: $1.1 million Rudy Giuliani: Just under $1 million Ron Paul: $270,000 Mike Huckabee: $160,000 Caveat: These are TV ads on WMUR, the only commercial station in New Hampshire with statewide reach. Part of New Hampshire is in the Boston media market, but I could not find expenditures by the campaigns on Boston stations. These amounts represent only the supposedly less expensive all-New-Hampshire market. That should make them all apples to apples comparisons, anyway. So, we crunch the numbers and we get: Obama spent $22.43 per vote, Clinton spent $16.41 per vote, Edwards spent $27.63 per vote, and Richardson spent $59.65 per vote. For each delegate, Obama spent $233K, Clinton spent $183K, and Edwards spent $300K. It looks like Richardson did not get any delegates. Romney spent $57.75 per vote, McCain spent $13.86 per vote, Giuliani spent $54.31 per vote, Paul spent $16.50 per vote, and Huckabee spent $6.72 per vote. For each delegate, Romney spent $975K, McCain spent $157K and Huckabee spent $160K. Giuliani and Paul did not get any delegates. Of the candidates who did manage to get delegates, Romney is clearly getting the least bang for his megabucks, by quite a margin. He might as well stand in the median of I-89 burning $50 bills.
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