As the presidential primary heats up, more candidates are going up on the airwaves to court voters’ support. Some are trying to pick up momentum by winning an early primary state, while others are just trying to qualify for the next round of debates. In both cases, we see candidates putting their money where their mouths are and prioritizing certain issues in paid advertisements. One way to examine candidate messaging is by sheer word count. Literally what topics are the candidates are talking about the most? And the answer, perhaps unsurprisingly, is Trump.

Admo tracks all political ads on the airwaves and automatically transcribes the ads. Using this feature we measured the number of times words have been spoken in presidential primary ads in Iowa. “Trump” has been uttered 25 more times than “message,” the second most spoken word. For reference, the frequency gap between the second and third most spoken words is only seven. The “Trump” number is inflated by the number of ads aired by billionaire Tom Steyer, which are very focused on Trump and impeachment.

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