• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, September 27, 2024

CPEV is not a metric you're likely to hear much on Madison Avenue, but on Pennsylvania Avenue, it may be the only ad metric that really matters.

It stands for the advertising cost per electoral vote, and in any presidential campaign, that's the KPI that matters most -- especially in the seven battleground states that will tip the election outcome one way or the other.

This week, AdImpact published its estimates for the cost per electoral vote in each of those seven battleground states, as well as in Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District to show what is at stake -- ad-effectiveness-wise -- in the GOP's failed attempt to transition the state to a winner-take-all electoral vote system that would have swung one electoral vote from the Democratic to the Republican side of the contest.

In ad dollar terms, that one Democratic Nebraskan electoral vote is worth $10.1 million.

Or looked at in another more common Madison Avenue metric -- the CPM, or in this case cost per voter in the district -- it still would have been a pricey campaign by Madison Avenue standards.

In the 2020 general election, 336,962 Nebraskans voted for president in Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District, making that one Democratic electoral vote the equivalent of a $29,974 CPM, advertising-wise.