Will campaign ad spending sway voter opinion?
In the final weeks of the campaign season, voters faced a flood of campaign ads highlighting competitive congressional races, big referendums and, of course, the presidential race. According to Wesleyan Media Project's final pre-election analysis of campaign ads, nearly $4.5 billion was spent in advertising for federal and gubernatorial races this election cycle on TV and radio alone.
On the 538 Politics podcast last month, we tried to understand more about the content and volume of these ads and make sense of which presidential candidate had an advertising edge over the other. This cycle, Harris outspent Trump on digital ads, dedicating nearly $215 million to Meta and Google platforms compared to Trump's $49 million. This gap in spending echoes the 2020 election, when Biden also led in digital ad spending.
Targeting the seven battleground states, each candidate crafted distinct messages. According to the Wesleyan Media Project report, over 70% of Harris' ads focused on women's rights and abortion, whereas over 97% of Trump's ads focused on taxes.
We also talked about the fact that, in recent weeks, both candidates aired very few positive ads, primarily releasing attack and contrast ads. The effect advertisements have on election results is argued by political scientists, but in a race as close as this one, researchers suggest the tone of the ads could tip the results.
Listen to the full podcast for more insight into how tone, issue-focused ads, spending gaps and ad frequency impacted this election cycle.