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WMP Issue Spotlight
2022 ElectionsReleases

Advertising Issue Spotlight (9/1/22 – 9/30/22)

(MIDDLETOWN, CT) October 4, 2022 – The Wesleyan Media Project is releasing the second post in a series of regularly updated overviews of issue mentions in federal races by state. Below we show the percentage of ads  mentioning seven key issues tracked by the WMP (abortion, energy/environment, guns, health care, immigration, inflation, public safety). The post covers ads from all sponsors (candidates, parties, and outside groups) aired on broadcast TV in U.S. House and U.S. Senate races from September 1, 2022 to September 30, 2022. Note that percentages across the columns may total more than 100 percent because ads often…
Wesleyan Media Project
October 4, 2022
Women in Second Amendment Jersey
2022 ElectionsReleases

2022 Midterm TV Ad Volume Off to a Record Start

Photo Gage Skidmore/Flickr Outside Groups Airing a Third of All Ads; Spotlight on Abortion, Immigration, and Guns (MIDDLETOWN, CT) June 23, 2022 - Driven by competitive primaries for U.S. Senate seats and gubernatorial races, the volume of advertising on television so far in the 2022 midterms is shattering records, according to a new report by the Wesleyan Media Project. Between January 6, 2021, and June 19, 2022, U.S. Senate contests have seen just over half a million television ad airings, which is a 66 percent increase over the volume of Senate ads in 2020 and a 227 percent increase over…
2020 ElectionsReleases

Biden Continues to Dominate Advertising

TV Shatters Records, Dems Lead Ad War in All Top Senate Races   Report Highlights President Top TV spenders in the presidential race (Table 1) Digital spending by Trump and Biden (Table 2) Compare geographic spend on TV (Figure 1) and Facebook (Figure 3) Tone of presidential TV ads (Figures 6 and 7) US Senate Top TV spenders in US Senate races (Table 5) Digital spending in US Senate races (Table 6) Top issues in US Senate TV ads (Table 8) US House Top TV spenders in US House races (Table 10) Digital spending in US House races (Table 11)…
Wesleyan Media Project
October 15, 2020
2018 ElectionsReleases

2018: The Health Care Election

Democrats hold huge ad advantages in federal races; Ad volume cycle-to-date up 60 percent over 2014 (MIDDLETOWN, CT) October 18, 2018 - It’s official: the 2018 midterms are about health care. In the period between September 18 and October 15, nearly half (45.9 percent) of airings in federal races mentioned the topic while nearly a third (30.2 percent) of gubernatorial airings did the same. Although both parties are mentioning health care, the topic is most prominent in ads supporting Democrats, appearing in 54.5 percent of pro-Democratic airings. As shown in Figure 1, health care appeared in a third (33.9 percent)…
Wesleyan Media Project
October 18, 2018