Op-Ed: Misleading political TV ads are filling up California’s ‘news deserts’
The first two weeks out of the new year were the busiest ever in terms of political TV advertising, with campaigns in nearly every corner of the Golden State spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on ad campaigns.
There was a lot of talk about media saturation as political TV advertising hit its peak but we found that the trend is not just limited to television, but also extends to radio, the internet and social media.
We mapped out the total volume of campaign spending in terms of dollars by all 50 states and territories during the first two weeks of the new year, and found that a growing number of states are seeing higher spending by both candidates and parties.
As we noted last week, the number of TV ad spots bought by the campaigns in a battleground state like New Hampshire jumped more than 40 percent to its highest rate in several years last week.
Similarly, campaigns spent the most total dollars on online and radio ads during the first two week of the new year, even as the number of spots fell on television.
But the most alarming trend is in the other states, where higher spending could lead to an onslaught of inaccurate and misleading political ads.
In Arizona, where the governor’s race is often won or lost in the first few weeks of the race, the most expensive spot is for an outside group that opposes the opponent and is expected to spend more than $100,000 in the race.
The group is an effort by the conservative Club for Growth to counter what it calls the “liberal bias” of the state’s TV and radio ads.
We found that more than one-third of the states and territories are seeing increases in spending during the first two weeks of the new year that seem to indicate a lack of clarity on where the truth lies during campaign periods.
With that in mind, we’ve highlighted some of the top winners and losers in the first two weeks of the year.
Winners:
In Arizona, outside groups are being outspent by the governor’s campaign for the first time since 2010. The governor’s camp spent more than $100