Politics

Photo: Joe Biden Campaign Senate Ads Still Airing;Nine Percent of Federal Ads on TV Mention Coronavirus     (MIDDLETOWN, CT) April 9, 2020 – Television advertising in the presidential race has slowed to a trickle in the past couple of weeks just prior to Bernie Sanders suspending his campaign and ending the 2020 Democratic nomination race—and ads have dropped off in House and Senate races as well. Figure 1 shows the number of airings in the presidential race by week, which peaked at almost 150,000 at the end of February 2020 (shown in the solid line). But in the past…

Photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr More than $1 Billion Spent in Democratic Nomination Campaign, 30% on Digital     (MIDDLETOWN, CT) March 11, 2020 – Voters in four states with large numbers of delegates (Arizona, Florida, Illinois and Ohio) will cast presidential primary ballots on March 17. Spending on television ads in these states during the past week (between March 4 and 8) was around $6.5 million (Table 1). Sanders spent $2.6 million on ads in these four states, while Biden topped $1.6 million. There was also some advertising from Michael Bloomberg, who dropped out of the race on March 4, and…

Photo: Rick Wilking/Reuters Self-funded billionaires drive ad spending up 131% over 2016   (MIDDLETOWN, CT) January 29, 2020 – A new analysis from the Wesleyan Media Project shows that over $44 million has been spent on 122,815 broadcast television presidential ads in Iowa, which holds the nation’s first caucus on Monday, February 3 (Table 1). These totals in Iowa represent an 11 percent increase in presidential ad spending over 2016 (which saw $40 million) and a 65 percent increase in airings (74,483 ads aired at this point in 2016). Tom Steyer’s campaign has spent over $11 million on over 37,000…

Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images Groups Mention Impeachment Issue In House Races;Total Ad Spending Approaches $300 Million in Presidential Race   (MIDDLETOWN, CT) December 19, 2019 – A new analysis from the Wesleyan Media Project in partnership with the Center for Responsive Politics shows that impeachment is largely absent from discussion in paid presidential television ads—with two major exceptions (Table 1). Since October 1, Donald Trump has spent over $4.4 million on 4,594 ad airings that discuss impeachment—fully 99.2 percent of his campaign’s airings. (Between the start of the year and October, he aired just 36 ads on broadcast television or…