Top 5 political campaigns rack up astonishing $500 million in ad spending (so far)

Campaign ad spending for just the five top races in the U.S. midterm elections has surged past half a billion dollars, according to the latest Ad Age Campaign Ad Scorecard analysis. Campaign Ad Scorecard is part of Ad Age’s Campaign Trail coverage, a project of Ad Age Datacenter, led by Director of Data Management Kevin Brown in partnership with Kantar/CMAG. An executive summary of—and essential context for—the charts below: • Four of the top five most spendy, ad-soaked races are for U.S. Senate seats. • The exception: the gubernatorial race in Illinois, which is a big-money race because it’s basically a battle of billionaires. Incumbent Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker is a billionaire member of the Pritzker family behind the Hyatt Hotels Corp. And fellow billionaire Ken Griffin, founder and CEO of the Citadel hedge fund, has been pouring money into the race not to run himself, but to attempt to oust Pritzker. That has meant throwing support behind a Republican with momentum—Richard Irvin, the mayor of Aurora, Illinois—to the tune of roughly $50 million so far, according to Ad Age sibling publication Crain’s Chicago Business. The Illinois primary is slated for June 28. The top spenders in the Illinois gubernatorial race so far: the Irvin campaign, the Pritzker campaign and the Democratic Governors Association (a PAC), in that order. DGA’s spending is largely anti-Irvin, possibly benefiting another Republican candidate, Darren Bailey. Complicating matters: Bailey, a member of the Illinois State Senate, is currently outpolling Irvin—and Bailey has the backing of yet another billionaire: Richard Uihlein, who is the founder of Uline (the shipping-supplies company) and an heir to the Schlitz brewing fortune. Top five races by media spending Senate races are on top, but one gubernatorial race is on the list. Dollars in millions. Media spending Race State Democrat Republican Total U.S. Senate Georgia $75 $56 $132 U.S. Senate Pennsylvania 44 76 119 U.S. Senate Arizona 60 30 90 Governor Illinois 38 50 87 U.S. Senate Nevada 54 20 74 Top five total $270 $232 $503 Top media spenders in the Illinois gubernatorian race It's the battle of the billionaires, incument JB Pritzker and investor Ken Griffin, who's backing Richard Irvin. Dollars in millions. Sponsor Media spending Richard Irvin (R) $30 JB Pritzker (D), incumbent 21 Democratic Governors Association (DGA) 17 Darren Bailey (R) 8 Jesse Sullivan (R) 6 People Who Play by the Rules PAC (R) 6 American Jobs and Growth Fund (R) 1 Gary Rabine (R) Less than $500,000 Paul Schimpf (R) Less than $500,000 Total $87 What two Republican Trump critics spent One Trump critic lost his U.S. House seat in the South Carolina primary. Tom Rice, U.S. House member representing South Carolina's 7th congressional district, lost his primary on June 14. He had voted to impeach. Sponsor Media spending Tom Rice (incumbent) $340,105 Grand Strand Pee Dee PAC 239,205 Russell Fry (primary winner) 199,454 Hometown Freedom Action Network 15,774 Barbara Arthur 2,211 Total $796,749 Another retained her party's nomination. Nancy Mace, U.S. House member representing South Carolina's 1st congressional district, won her primary on June 14. Sponsor Media spending Nancy Mace (incumbent) $641,125 Kate Arrington 402,355 WFW Action Fund (Women for Women Action Fund) 351,612 Our American Century 163,884 Total $1,558,976 Source: Media spending from Kantar/CMAG. Spending (booked or spent) for TV, radio and digital ads between Dec. 28, 2021, and Election Day as of June 15, 2022. Some candidates and PACs had begun spending--some significantly--in 2021. The South Carolina primary was June 14. The Illinois primary will be June 28. • The single-most spendy race is taking place in Georgia, where Republicans and Democrats have burned through a combined $132 million on TV, radio and tracked digital advertising from Dec. 28, 2021, through Election Day as of June 15, 2022. Incumbent U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) has only been in office since January 2021; he won a 2020 special election for the seat, which was previously held by Kelly Loeffler (R). Warnock will face off against former football player Herschel Walker, who won the Republican nomination and has been endorsed by Donald Trump. So far Democrats are outspending Republicans, $75 million to $56 million, in the ad race. • Our tallies include tracked spending by the candidates’ campaigns as well as the political action committees supporting them. Cannes Lions 2022 Read all of Ad Age’s festival coverage here Check out our live blog here • Beyond Georgia, the three other most-expensive U.S. Senate races are in Pennsylvania (a combined $119 million in ad spending by Republicans and Democrats), Arizona ($90 million) and Nevada ($74 million) during our measurement window. • In Pennsylvania there is no incumbent—U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey (R) announced in October 2020 that he wouldn’t seek reelection—which led to a contentious primary race between two well-financed Republican candidates: former TV doctor Mehmet Oz and former hedge fund manager Dave McCormick. Oz won the Republican primary in a squeaker, but is currently polling behind the Democratic nominee, John Fetterman, the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania. Republicans, of course, hope to take control of the U.S. Senate, so the prospect of Oz, who was endorsed by Trump, possibly losing to Fetterman will surely drive ad spending in this race—particularly by the GOP—even further into the stratosphere. • In Arizona, Democrats are so far outspending Republicans 2-to-1—$60 million vs. $30 million—on campaign ads in the U.S. Senate race, which pits incumbent Mark Kelly, the presumptive Democratic nominee, against a Republican candidate to be determined in the Aug. 2 primary. Donald Trump has endorsed Blake Masters, a venture capitalist backed by Peter Thiel, the billionaire technologist and fellow venture capitalist; Masters is the president of the Thiel Foundation, a private grant-making organization. Top marketers, brands and agency ventures Ad Age Datacenter’s definitive rankings of the biggest U.S. and global advertisers and agency companies Click here • In Nevada, incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto will face off against Republican nominee Adam Laxalt, the state’s former attorney general, in the general election. So far, Democrats have burned through $54 million on measured advertising vs. $20 million by Republicans during our measurement period, but given that Laxalt just won the primary—with Trump’s endorsement—on June 14, watch for the ad-spending equation to rapidly change from here on out. • Though Trump is obviously playing a major factor in multiple big-spending U.S. Senate races (see above), he has yet to endorse a candidate in the Illinois gubernatorial race. Meanwhile, in South Carolina, two Trump critics in the Republican party had very different results in the June 14 primary (see charts, above). See Ad Age Datacenter Agency Report 2022 The agency business rebounded with a surge in revenue and hiring. But caution signs are ahead. Click here

Top 5 political campaigns rack up astonishing $500 million in ad spending (so far)

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