Democrats widen spending gap in final election stretch
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Democrats have roughly doubled their national ad spending advantage against Republicans over the last month or so, per analytics platform AdImpact.
Why it matters: Only a short window remains to sway voters before Election Day — though tens of millions of Americans have already cast their ballot.
By the numbers: Democratic campaigns and outside groups have spent about $4.5 billion combined on ads as of Thursday, compared to about $3.5 billion for Republicans.
- That's up about $2.7 billion for Democrats and $2.2 billion for Republicans since Sept. 20, when Democrats had spent $1.8 billion to Republicans' $1.3 billion.
- Put another way, Democrats are now up about $1 billion against Republicans, compared to their $500 million advantage late last month.
Context: These figures include spending around presidential, congressional and down-ballot races.
The latest: Vice President Harris' campaign recently became the first to run ads on the Sphere, Las Vegas' standout new venue covered in 580,000 square feet of LEDs.
The intrigue: All this political ad spending has been a windfall for local TV stations, Axios' Sara Fischer reports.
- Meanwhile, many global democracies ban political advertising and similar activity in a pre-election "silence period," per Axios' April Rubin.
What's next: In just a few days, we'll start finding out whether Democrats' spending advantage translates into electoral success.
