• Business Week, Tuesday, January 3, 2012 11 AM

Negative ads are prevailing. 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.

Most of those negative ads were directed against one candidate: former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who led national and Iowa opinion polls from mid-November to mid-December. Since Dec. 1, 45% of all ads airing in Iowa criticized Gingrich for shifting policy positions and advocacy for Freddie Mac, a government-backed mortgage-finance company caught up in the housing crisis, and other groups after resigning the House in 1999.

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