Blitz of political attack ads in Pennsylvania and other swing states may be doing candidates and voters more harm than good
By Heather LaMarre, Temple University,
7 days ago
For Pennsylvania residents like me, there is no escape from the record-breaking number of political attack ads disrupting our favorite shows and filling our social media feeds.
A projected US$10.7 billion is being spent nationwide – but particularly in battleground states – on political ads this election season.
For those who are feeling election fatigue and just want to stream in peace: Buckle in, because it’s about to get worse.
As of late August 2024, over $1.7 billion in political ads had been reserved nationwide to run between Labor Day and Election Day. Over $400 million of that is just for presidential election ads in seven key battleground states.
With Pennsylvania widely considered the most decisive state in the 2024 presidential election, it may be no surprise that the Keystone State has the most presidential ad reservations, totaling $137 million .
As a political communication expert and professor of media and social influence who lives in Philadelphia, I am often asked: “Why are there so many political ads, why are they so negative, and more importantly, how do we make it stop?”
I’ll answer the first two below. For the last, the truth is we don’t.
Voters feel exhausted, angry, stressed
If campaigns are spending all this money on political attack ads, they must work, right? Surely they sway at least undecided voters?
Historically, political advertising was considered an effective tool for educating voters, building momentum and engaging the politically uninterested.
Political ad spending has monumentally increased over the past several election cycles, and hit the billions after the landmark 2010 Citizens United case .
In that ruling, the Supreme Court decided that limiting spending from corporations or outside groups violated those groups’ First Amendment right to free speech. Prior to Citizens United, corporations and other groups like nonprofits and labor unions were subject to prohibitions on campaign donations . Individual campaign contribution limits, which currently stand at $3,300 per candidate per election, kept spending relatively level across the electorate.
Following the ruling, however, the influx of corporate and outside money completely changed the campaign finance landscape.
In 2010, political ad spending reached $3.3 billion – an 11% increase from the 2008 election that took place pre-Citizens United. A decade later, total spending on political ads soared to $9 billion in the 2020 election .
Significant portions of this spending come from political action committees that are not bound by traditional campaign contribution limits as long as they do not donate the money directly to a candidate or coordinate with a candidate’s campaign.
These groups, known as super PACs , can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money from undisclosed donors. While super PACs have to disclose identities of people who donate over $200 in a year, donors can use shell companies to hide their identities.
During the 2024 election cycle, over $2.4 billion has been raised by super PACs. This is where much of the funding for the political ad barrage that voters experience in the weeks leading up to the election comes from.
For example, in the weeks following President Joe Biden leaving the race, 95% of pro-Trump ads focused on attacking Vice President Kamala Harris rather than promoting policy, according to the Wesleyan Media Project, which tracks political advertising.
But the media environment has changed drastically, and voters are growing resentful.
Voters resent microtargeting
Unlike traditional voter segmentation where an entire group of voters would receive similar messages, campaigns now use data analytics to microtarget messages for specific voters.
Microtargeting enlists the help of social monitoring companies to identify voters’ psychometric data – their hopes, fears, likes, dislikes and so on – so that campaigns can finely tune messages to target them on social media.
A 2020 Pew survey found that over half of voters believe tech companies should not allow political ads on social media. Three-quarters oppose campaigns using their personal data to target them with political ads.
Put simply, the political ad barrage coupled with microtargeting strategies is not an effective campaign strategy that sways voters’ minds. Meanwhile, there is growing evidence that this level of negativity is harming the electorate and undermining trust in democracy.
This article is republished from The Conversation , a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Heather LaMarre , Temple University
Heather LaMarre does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Comments / 12
Add a Comment
Not today
4d ago
Democrats just raised 2 billion. Buckle your seatbelt.
KW
5d ago
I don’t care what either say, I’m a democrat and not voting for Harris. I’m voting for Trump to hopefully get things back to what I had 4 years ago.
Get updates delivered to you daily. Free and customizable.
It’s essential to note our commitment to transparency:
Our Terms of Use acknowledge that our services may not always be error-free, and our Community Standards emphasize our discretion in enforcing policies. As a platform hosting over 100,000 pieces of content published daily, we cannot pre-vet content, but we strive to foster a dynamic environment for free expression and robust discourse through safety guardrails of human and AI moderation.