Pennsylvania’s status as a political battleground is once again proving to be a major windfall for media owners and operators. Campaign ad spending in the Keystone State has hit $85 million across U.S. Senate and gubernatorial campaigns in the space of just three months, 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.

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• The biggest advertising outlay so far has been focused on the seat currently held by Republican U.S. Senator Pat Toomey, who announced in October 2020 that he wouldn’t seek reelection. Republican candidates and the political action committees that support them have spent $34.4 million across TV, radio and digital advertising from Dec. 28, 2021, through Election Day as of March 30, 2022. Democratic candidates and PACs, meanwhile, spent $27.5 million in the same measurement window. (As we note in the fine print below, some candidates and PACs began spending—some significantly—in 2021, but for the purposes of our analysis, we’re tracking all candidates’ spending from Dec. 28 forward.)

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• That said, the biggest single ad spender in Pennsylvania’s midterm U.S. Senate race is the pro-Democrat Senate Majority PAC, which burned through $20.8 million during our measurement window. Far behind in second place, at $8.9 million, is Honor Pennsylvania, a pro-GOP PAC.

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• At the campaign level, though, the two biggest-spending Republican candidates—former TV doctor Mehmet Oz and former hedge fund manager Dave McCormick—have each roughly doubled the outlay of the top-spending Democratic candidate, Conor Lamb, the current U.S. representative from Pennsylvania’s 17th congressional district. During our three-month measurement window, Oz is at $8.6 million, McCormick is at $8.3 million and Lamb is at $4.2 million.

• In the race for Pennsylvania’s governorship, Republicans have been far outspending Democrats—$20.7 million vs. $2.5 million, during our measurement window—on advertising. William “Bill” McSwain, who formerly served as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, together with Commonwealth Leaders Fund, the powerful Pennsylvania PAC that backs him, make up most of that Republican spending. The incumbent, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, is term-limited out.

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• It’s worth noting that Pennsylvania will also elect 17 U.S. Representatives in November—down from 18, due to the results of the 2020 U.S. Census—and those races have yet to heat up in terms of advertising outlay. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court finalized the state’s new congressional map only on Feb. 23—the court got involved in the wake of Gov. Wolf and the state legislature deadlocking over the fine points of the redistricting—and the state’s filing deadline for candidates for U.S. congressional seats was just a few weeks ago (March 15).

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Per an analysis by FiveThirtyEight, six of the 17 districts lean Democrat and eight lean Republican, leaving just three seats that are considered to be toss-ups. In other words, just a few races are likely to result in major ad-revenue windfalls for media owners and operators. And that advertising will, of course, be highly targeted down to the Zip Code-level within those competitive districts, vs. the full-state ad blitzes being seen around the U.S. Senate and gubernatorial campaigns within Pennsylvania.