Advertising is a central component in a business’s ability to inform potential customers of the products and services that they offer. Alongside the many businesses that use advertising, politicians use it advantageously as well. The goal for the vast majority of politicians is to be elected to office. Unfortunately for them, most people don’t know local politicians as well as national ones such as the presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. And although it may seem like the majority of political advertising is going towards the presidential race, a larger amount is directed towards the campaigns for the senate, house, and governor positions both nationally and statewide.

Where Does it Go?

In the week of October 27th through November 2nd, there was over $272 million spent on advertising for the presidential race. The following three days before the general election on November 5th saw more than $300 million in spending for all political races. In the week of the 27th, Democrats outspent Republicans in the presidential race $43.4 million to $40.7 million, respectively. The concentration of spending towards a single candidate is best seen in the up-ballot races, most notably the one for the white house, but down-ballot races do take the larger percent of overall political advertising when combined with advertising for other political issues such as abortion, or more specifically in Florida, the issue of the legalization of marijuana. This single issue saw over $18.5 million of cash towards its advertising combined with $19 million for abortion, both just in the state of Florida. In all, other individual state issues and races saw the rest of the $722 million in advertising over the final week out of the $994 million spent overall.

An Overall Account

In is totality, political advertising has amounted to an enormous sum of over $10.4 billion since the start of 2023. It is a number so big that many questions can be brought up from it, such as why it is necessary for these political campaigns to spend such huge amounts of money on advertising instead of using it to help Americans in other ways. Money spent on public initiatives could better suit campaign’s desires to increase their electability among the American public. Many political adds don’t even give a good answer as to what a candidate is all about, more targeting why the other side is evil and undeserving of such an important position. Nonetheless, political advertising, and the vast spending that goes with it, will always be an integral part of the campaigns for political office as it is the standard way for politicians to invoke emotional change in the population in hopes of changing their vote in favor of themselves.