TV political ad spending tops $229M

Figures for governor, U.S. Senate races are the highest in country

If it seems like the tsunami of political ads leading up to the midterm elections in Florida is worse than ever, you’re right.

An analysis of TV political ad spending from the Wesleyan Media Project finds a staggering number of ads — costing an enormous amount of money — running in Florida, thanks to the state’s expensive TV media markets and the highly competitive races for governor between Ron DeSantis and Andrew Gillum and U.S. Senate between Bill Nelson and Rick Scott.

No other state comes close to

Florida.

So far this year, the analysis found $133 million has been spent on TV advertising by candidates for Florida governor, including the primary. The second highest spending in governor’s race TV advertising is Illinois, at $95 million.

Ad spending in the Senate race totals $96 million in Florida. Second highest Senate race spending is Missouri, with $59.4 million.

Florida’s total TV ad spending is $229 million, which doesn’t include advertising in U.S. House races.

The figures come from the Wesleyan Media Project, supported by Wesleyan University and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which tracks and analyzes political advertising. The analysis uses data from Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group.

Kantar Media/CMAG figures include ads on broadcast television stations, national networks and national cable channels. Ad buys on local cable channels aren’t included.

From Oct. 16 through Oct. 25, the analysis shows 18,214 ads were aired in the Florida gubernatorial race between Republican Ron DeSantis and Democrat Andrew Gillum at an estimated cost of

$12.7 million.

The spending and number of ads aired in the governor’s race — including spots from candidates, political parties and outside groups — is by far the highest in the country.

Ohio was in second place, with 13,474 ads at an estimated cost of $6 million.

During the same 10 days 21,466 ads were run in the Florida U.S. Senate race, at an estimated cost of $16.4 million.

Second place was the Indiana U.S. Senate race, with 18,067 ads at a cost of $8.4 million.

South Florida is also home to one big-spending U.S. House race.

The $3 million spent in the 26th Congressional District in MiamiDade and Monroe counties is the fourth highest in the nation from Oct. 16 through Oct. 25. Republican U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo is in a tight race for a third term against Democratic challenger Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.

Several of Florida’s TV markets are in the top tier of television advertising for the entire campaign season, from Jan. 1 through Oct. 25.

Orlando, first place, 73,197 ad airings, including the governor’s race, Senate race and U.S. House contests. Tampa, third place, 68,960. Miami-Fort Lauderdale, ninth place, 51,203.

West Palm Beach, 11th place,

48,622.

The only other state with two television markets in the top 12 is Nevada, where Las Vegas is No. 2 and Reno is No 12.

The analysis looks at ads placed by Democratic and Republicans candidates, parties and groups supporting one side or the other.

For the entire Florida gubernatorial campaign, Democrats had an advantage of 40,534 ad spot airings out of the total of 196,050 from Jan. 1 through Oct. 25. But that number is skewed because of the heavy spending in the five-way Democratic gubernatorial primary, which included billionaire Jeff Greene, who paid for a massive ad campaign with his own money.

For the 10 days from Oct. 16 to Oct. 25, the analysis found 18,214 ads airing in Florida. The Republican advantage was relatively small, just 364.

For the entire year’s Senate race, the Republicans have an advantage of 29,758 ad airings, out of a total of 124,868 airings. The candidates were never in doubt, and Scott, the Republican challenging Democrat Nelson, is a multi-millionaire who started advertising early in the year, using his own money.

From Oct. 16 to 25, the analysis said there were 21,466 ads run in the U.S. Senate race in Florida. Democrats had an advantage of 4,876.

From Oct. 16 to 25, the report found 2,359 advertising airings in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale television market in the race between Curbelo and Mucarsel-Powell. The Democratic side had an advantage of 531 airings.

Nationally, the total volume of ads for the 2018 election is up, and the number of negative ads is also higher. The 3.7 million political ads so far in 2018 is a 59 percent increase from 2014.

As is the case in Florida, Wesleyan said the advertising increase is largely because of the large number of competitive races across the country.

Wesleyan’s study didn’t provide state-by-state comparisons to 2014. One reason both the volume of ads and the spending is higher in Florida is the state has races for governor and U.S. Senate this year. In 2014, Florida had a governor’s race but no Senate contest.

“This election season feels exceptionally negative to many viewers because the sheer number of negative ads on the air is up by 61 percent over the 2014 midterms,” Wesleyan said in its report. Nationwide, nearly 569,000 “pure attack ads” have aired since Labor Day. The previous record was nearly 450,000 in 2010.

“With control of Congress up for grabs and more competitive races, we generally expect campaign activity and negativity to increase,” Erika Franklin Fowler, co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project, said in a written statement.

“But the amount of negative ads — and sheer amount of advertising on television more generally in 2018 — is really stunning,” she said.