Today is Election Day, and besides looking forward to some much-needed sleep, I and others in the political consulting community will be scouring the data in the coming days to figure out which campaign tactics worked, and which flopped. In particular, I’ll be paying close attention to the data on the effectiveness of key new media metrics relative to some menu items from the traditional playbook that still dominate campaigns (TV, radio, and mail).

Numbers from the Campaign Media Analysis Group tweeted out yesterday by the New York Times’ Michael Luo, however, provide for an illuminating contrast on the hot question of whether the massive influx of outside group spending on television ads made any difference in the campaign whatsoever.

In Colorado, CMAG found total spending on both sides to be roughly even:

Nuggets from cmag data: Ds and Rs both spent more than $13 million on TV in #COSEN; basically a draw.

In Pennsylvania, it was a blowout for Pat Toomey — 2-to-1 when you factor in Toomey’s campaign spending and those of outside groups:

Big disparity in CMAG data out of #PASEN. Rs $20.6 mill, Ds $9.8 mill. Big diff was $9 mill by R outside groups.

Colorado and Pennsylvania are often grouped together in Senate race rankings, and have followed similar trajectories — with some polls showing a recent tightening in both races. Yet if campaign spending were everything, you’d be expecting Toomey to be faring a bit better relative to where he was at the start of the campaign than Ken Buck.

But a perusal of the RealClearPolitics polling data shows that’s not the case. Both have tracked very closely to one another despite disparities in campaign and outside group spending on TV ads. Ken Buck began his general election campaign after the August primary with a slight 44 to 43.3 percent advantage over Michael Bennet, and he now leads by a 3 percent, for a gain of 2.3 points. After the Pennsylvania primary in May, Toomey also led by 1 point, and has expanded his lead to 4.5 points, for a gain of 3.5 points — not a statistically significant difference from the Colorado race. Toomey has led in the general election by greater margins than Buck, reflecting a slightly more Republican lean to this race, but the recent tightening of the race (which has now resolved to a stronger Toomey lead) was in some ways more dramatic.

See the trends for yourself:

 

 

None of this is to say that television can’t be a powerful medium. This cycle has seen some extremely powerful video advertising, but its success (or failure, in the case of Jack Conway’s Aqua Buddha ad) had almost everything to do with the stickiness and creativity of the message and very little to do with how many gross ratings points were behind them. An extra $9 million in ad spending in Pennsylvania didn’t seem to buy very much of a difference at all. A possible takeaway? Protecting every single dime of a campaign’s budget for television (often at the expense of grassroots and Internet activity) may not matter as much as it once did in an age when voters are more engaged and informed than ever before, as evidenced by the record midterm turnout we’re likely to see today.

Just some fragmentary food for thought as we await the final results.