U.S. Senate races to attract 1 million TV ads
Editor’s note: The Center for Public Integrity is tracking political advertising in races for the U.S. Senate and state-level offices. Use these two, interactive features to see who is calling the shots and where the money is being spent.
After this year’s U.S. Senate races are run and done, the notoriously nasty contests will likely limp into history with this distinction: Candidates, political groups and nonprofits will have combined to air — cue Austin Powers nemesis Dr. Evil — one million television ads.
Through Monday, about 908,000 U.S. Senate-focused TV ads have aired this election cycle, according to a Center for Public Integrity review of preliminary data provided by Kantar Media/CMAG, an advertising tracking firm.
With a week’s worth of advertising yet to be tallied, to say nothing of the deluge of messaging that would flood anticipated Senate runoff contests in Georgia and Louisiana, the million-ad mark will be eclipsed soon.
Related: Who's buying the Senate?
Last week alone, candidates, party committees, super PACs, nonprofit groups and others together produced 83,000 U.S. Senate-focused ads — more than any other single week during the 2014 election cycle.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, National Republican Senatorial Committee and pro-Democrat super PAC Senate Majority PAC were tops among about 110 U.S. Senate-related ad sponsors.
Most of the ads contained highly negative content as Republicans are fighting to capture six seats needed to win control of the U.S. Senate.
North Carolina’s race between incumbent Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan and Thom Tillis, her Republican rival, drew more ads last week than any other contest — about 11,000 from Oct. 21 to Oct. 27.
Related: TV ads in key Senate battlegrounds per week since Labor Day
That’s more than one ad per minute, on average.
Meanwhile, in Iowa, where Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley and GOP state Sen. Joni Ernst are battling for an open seat in the wake of Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin’s retirement, voters saw about one U.S. Senate-focused ad a minute.
And in both Colorado and Georgia, voters were subjected to about two TV ads every three minutes, according to the Center for Public Integrity’s analysis of estimates provided by Kantar Media/CMAG.
U.S. Senate races in Louisiana, Kansas, Kentucky and Arkansas all saw about one TV ad every two minutes last week.
Related: Total TV ads per week in 2014 Senate races since Labor Day
There’s more to this story. Click here to read the rest at the Center for Public Integrity.
This story is part of Buying the Senate 2014. Whether Republicans control both chambers of Congress squarely depends on Senate races in a handful of states. Click here to read more stories in this investigation.
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Copyright 2014 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.
