Still, when Warren’s poll numbers took a hit, both nationally and in Iowa, the TV traditionalists viewed it as a win for their side. Buttigieg’s fall ad campaign made him more resilient to attacks, Grisolano says, while Warren’s absence from TV until late October made her susceptible to a fall.

“If you have a chance to define yourself in an uncluttered media market, it’s just a rare opportunity anymore,” says Jeff Link, an Iowa-based Democratic strategist. “She needed to build a foundation here. She has a compelling story to tell about her Oklahoma upbringing. But people need to hear it somewhere other than campaign events.”

In the Warren campaign’s view, Buttigieg spent so much money early that he doesn’t have enough on hand during the crucial final weekend in Iowa. A week before the caucuses, Buttigieg, who had raised $25 million in the fourth quarter of 2019, scheduled a private high-dollar fundraiser in Iowa, something that made some Iowa Democrats privately scoff. “Where did the money go?” a Warren aide asked. “The answer is they spent it on TV ads, months before people were making up their minds.”

And Buttigieg’s steady stream of TV spending did not protect him from a fall. He took a 9-point hit in the January Iowa Poll, after he spent part of December under fire from Warren for holding fundraisers in “wine caves.” Warren, now fully competitive on TV, leapfrogged Buttigieg by one percentage point. And Bernie Sanders, for the first time, rose to the top of the field.

With just three days left to campaign before Caucus Day, the 2020 candidates are now making their cases in person in Iowa, tearing across the state by bus and by plane, offering their closing arguments to caucus goers. Historically, the outcome has frequently propelled a Democrat to the nomination, including Hillary Clinton in 2016, Barack Obama in 2008 and John Kerry in 2004. This time, however, the importance of Iowa is less certain, with a country distracted by the Senate trial of Donald Trump, with more states looming earlier than ever, and the billions of Michael Bloomberg flooding into the states that vote on Super Tuesday and beyond.

How decidedly the argument between Grisolano and Rospars will be settled is uncertain, too. Iowa, as everyone has said for months, is mostly white, unlike many of the states to come, and its caucus system is unusual, too. And even in Iowa, it’s clear that political advertising, in any medium, isn’t a magic fairy dust that creates a Cinderella candidate. Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand were among the earliest to buy ads on Iowa television. Both have dropped out. John Delaney, the former Maryland congressman, began spending on Iowa television at the beginning of 2018. Today, Delaney is polling at 0 percent. At $17.5 million, Tom Steyer spent the most in Iowa on TV and radio ads. He last polled in the single digits.

Neither Grisalono nor Rospers shuns either platform; both believe in a mix of television and digital messaging. By the end of the campaign, Buttigieg actually outspent Warren on Facebook ads in Iowa: $1.1 million for Buttigieg versus just under $400,000 for Warren as of this week, according to Advertising Analytics.

But if one thing is obvious, it’s that the age of the smartphone has not led candidates to abandon TV. Each of the candidates at the top of the Iowa polls has spent heavily on TV and radio ads, and each has ramped up spending significantly in the race’s final weeks. Among the frontrunners, Bernie Sanders spent the most on traditional media, at $11 million. Buttigieg came next, at $10.2 million. Biden made an earlier and bigger investment in TV ads than even Buttigieg this summer. But he had to come off the air after running into cash problems, and his polling numbers started to dip. Then the pro-Biden Unite the Country super PAC came in with $4.7 million in TV and radio ads, which more than doubled his spending—and as of this week, Biden is either leading or just behind Sanders in the polls. An ascendant Klobuchar has recently ramped up her TV spending, and she’s threatening to break into the top four.

Even Warren, by the end, if spending is any indicator, had abandoned the notion that digital has become the most important medium in political messaging. Her campaign dumped nearly $1 million into TV ads over each of the last two weeks. And as the caucuses neared, Warren consistently outspent Buttigieg on TV, five weeks in a row.

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