Dems Dominate Ad Spending Up and Down Ballot

(10/1/20) Democrats—helped by pro-Democratic interest groups—have dominated ad spending in the presidential, Senate and House races since Labor Day.

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Trump Shifts Focus From Crime to Jobs

(9/17/20) A new analysis from the Wesleyan Media Project finds that, at least on television, Donald Trump’s advertising has shifted away from his almost exclusive focus on crime and protests to more “bread and butter” Republican issues.

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TV Ads Favor Biden 2:1 in Last Month

(9/9/20) Pro-Biden television ads have dominated the presidential race in the past month. Since August 10, Joe Biden and his group supporters have aired 106,000 television ads at a cost of $58.9 million compared to 57,000 ads at a cost of $35.8 million for Trump and his group supporters.

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Year End Summaries

Summary posts giving an overview of campaign ads for each election cycle going back to 2010.

View Year End Summaries  

Research

Find publications by the Wesleyan Media Project, WMP members, or affiliated institutions.

View WMP Research  

Delta Lab

Computational analysis of political advertising and media with student learning as a central focus.

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Since its founding in 2010, the Wesleyan Media Project (WMP) has become the “go to” source for real-time, non-partisan information on the volume, spending, sponsorship and content of political advertising across the United States.

Our goals are to track all election-related advertising by source (group, corporation, union, party, or candidate) and to provide comparative analysis enhancing the ability of journalists, citizens and scholars to hold governments and special interests accountable.

See our latest report here, or read our year-end summaries of campaign advertising in the 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018 elections.

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WMP in the News

Bloomberg Government – Democrats Target GOP Senators’ Virus Response in August Ad Surge, 8/18/20

WSJ – Campaigns, Like the Country, Begin Reawakening, 5/16/20

CNN – Ad Spending Barrels Past $1 Billion Mark as Mike Bloomberg Overwhelms Airwaves, 2/28/20