The political advertising situation in Georgia is—let’s just say it—completely out of control.
On Nov. 18, we reported that ad spending on the Peach State’s U.S. Senate runoff election had hit $101 million. On Nov. 24, we served up a new tally: $272 million.
Now we’ve hit $440 million (as of EOD Dec. 10, including advance bookings of ads that will run through Jan. 5).
That’s according to the third Campaign Ad Scorecard (CAS), Overtime Edition—part of an ongoing project led by Ad Age Datacenter Director of Data Management Kevin Brown in partnership with Kantar/CMAG. (See the tables below.)
Once again, to refresh your memory, a runoff election for both of Georgia’s U.S. senate seats is slated for Jan. 5 (a useful primer: “Georgia’s Runoffs Will Determine Control Of The Senate. Here’s What We Know So Far,” from FiveThirtyEight). Democrat Jon Ossoff is once again the ad lead; his campaign has dropped $68 million (up from $44 million in our last report) on ads (primarily across TV and radio, with some digital in the mix) from Nov. 3 through Jan. 5.
Ossoff is challenging U.S. Sen. David Perdue, the Republican incumbent, whose campaign has spent $41 million (up from $29.1 million in our last report) on ads so far.