More than $10 billion has been spent on ads in the 2024 election

By Domenico Montanaro, NPR

Altogether, $10.5 billion has been spent on campaign ads in the 2024 election cycle, on races from president down to county commissioner, according to data compiled by the ad-tracking firm AdImpact and analyzed by NPR.

That total is up $1 billion from four years ago.

Democrats have outspent Republicans, $5 billion to $4.1 billion, from the beginning of the cycle, starting in January 2023. (Independent, third-party and nonpartisan groups account for the rest.)

 

Twenty-three states this cycle have seen more than $100 million spent. But one state tops them all: Pennsylvania. An astonishing $1.2 billion has been spent on ads in the state, the first time in U.S. history that a single state has seen more than $1 billion in ads.

Pennsylvania has been a political hotbed in this cycle. In addition to the presidential campaign, which has dumped in $576 million in ads, there are also competitive Senate and House races in the state. The Senate contest has seen $344 million, and that’s not even the most money spent on a Senate race. That honor belongs to Ohio, where about $518 million in ads have run.

Across the country, about $3 billion has been spent on the presidential election, including the primaries. That’s slightly lower than 2020, but that was skewed by former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg spending $586 million in ads for his failed Democratic primary effort. That was almost as much as the $651 million that President Biden’s campaign spent in the primary and general election against former President Donald Trump.

About $2.6 billion of this year’s total has gone to general election efforts, which started unofficially after Super Tuesday in March.

Since March 6, Democrats — including the Biden and Harris campaigns, as well as outside groups supporting them — have outspent Republicans, $1.6 billion to $956 million.

The presidential campaign has been concentrated in seven states. Almost $4 out of every $5 spent for the presidential election has gone to Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada.

Democrats have outspent Republicans in each of the seven states. The most, $578 million, went to none other than Pennsylvania. Each party spent more than a quarter of all their ad money in the Keystone state.

The amount of money spent in the presidential election is remarkable compared to 2020, considering how much smaller the field of competitive states is and that Florida is out of the ad-spending picture.

In 2020, $371 million was spent in the general election on Florida, an expensive place to buy ads because of its multiple media markets. This year, only $4 million has been spent there.

In 2020, the most money spent was on Georgia. It was hotly contested in the presidential election and had a Senate runoff. But with all races combined in Georgia in 2020, $787 million was spent, almost half-a-billion dollars less than the spending seen in Pennsylvania this year. Georgia has seen the third-most spending specifically in the presidential election this year, $304 million, behind Pennsylvania and Michigan ($376 million).

The biggest spenders in this election include the presidential campaigns, committees trying to elect candidates to the Senate and House, as well as several outside groups.

Here are the top 10 spenders:

1. Harris for President (D) $513 million

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