The presidential contest has entered the home stretch. Last week’s debate might be the only one, but the ad contest between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris is a nearly constant presence nationwide and especially in swing states.

Since entering the race in late July, Harris has raised a staggering $615 million. You might remember that Democratic donors were reticent to open their wallets and checkbooks in the final days of President Joe Biden’s campaign. Those hesitations are now history. In August, Harris raised an impressive $360 million, nearly three times the $130 million raised by Trump.

As September began, the Harris campaign had $400 million compared to $300 million for Trump. Harris has already transferred $25 million to down-ballot races, supporting Democratic congressional candidates so she has an easier time passing her agenda should she win the election.

The Harris campaign and its allies are far ahead in spending compared to the Trump campaign and its super PAC allies from Sept. 3 through Election Day. Dollars booked for this important period show the following in the presidential race:

Democrats: $500 million, Republicans: $250 million

Largest Democratic spenders:

• FF PAC: $225 million
• Kamala Harris: $192 million
• FF PAC/Climate Power Action/LCV Victory Fund/EDF Action Votes: $16 million

Largest Republican spenders:

• Donald Trump: $142 million
• Make America Great Again PAC: $69 million
• Preserve America PAC: $49 million

Where is all of this money going? Here are the states getting the majority of attention in presidential campaign ad spending:

• Pennsylvania (the center of the 2024 universe): $188 million
• Michigan: $134 million
• Georgia: $96 million
• Wisconsin: $89 million
• Arizona: $81 million

Here are the rankings for individual markets:

• Philadelphia: $81 million
• Atlanta: $74 million
• Detroit: $73 million
• Phoenix: $67 million
• Pittsburgh: $45 million

The presidential race has come down to what happens with the Blue Wall states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. It would be nearly impossible for Harris to win without sweeping these three states. As a result, both campaigns are spending copious amounts of time and money to win.

Trump won in 2016 with narrow victories in these states, which Biden flipped back to Democrats in his 2020 victory.

These battleground states also feature close U.S. Senate races—the most expensive in Pennsylvania between Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican challenger David McCormick.

Swing states feature common advertising themes—although each party has its own take and priorities vary by state, according to Mediaradar/CMAG data supplied to Silver Oak:

• Pennsylvania: Public safety, economy, immigration
• Georgia: Economy, inflation, public safety
• Wisconsin: Public safety, economy, inflation
• Michigan: Public safety, immigration, economy
• Arizona: Public safety, immigration, economy
• Nevada: Public safety, immigration, social issues
• North Carolina: Economy, inflation, anti-Harris ads

On immigration, Republican ads cite the open border policies of the Biden administration and the resulting influx of prisoners and terrorists into the country. Democratic ads criticize Republicans for failing to support a bipartisan border bill in Congress that Trump lobbied against. The social issues in ads in Nevada include discussions about reproductive rights and LGBTQ/transgender rights.

Where are these ads running once booked? The results include some surprises.

On broadcast TV, the majority of ads are running during daytime game shows, soap operas, news and talk shows. Between Aug. 1 and Sept. 12, swing states saw almost 92,000 ads in daytime slots.

Daytime spots are less costly compared to the rest of the broadcast day, and also reach older voters who typically turn up at the polls.

The second most popular time slot is early morning and includes local news and network offerings such as “Today,” “Good Morning America,” “CBS This Morning,” etc. While this might be background noise for families preparing for the day, it’s become an important time to reach voters and an important piece of broadcasters’ revenue—late news and early news programs combined don’t equal what is airing in the early morning hours.

“Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy” remain popular choices for political advertisers. Such prime access shows are outpolling late and early news at this stage of the campaign. News is always considered to be a must-have for political advertisers, but it seems that the early morning hours are now more popular than the longtime favorites of early and late news.

It’s no surprise that broadcast TV is seeing the most political advertising. CTV is making significant gains this cycle and is likely to total more than $1.5 billion once the election concludes. That will be about a 50% increase over 2022 and a doubling of where CTV stood just four short years ago.

Thanks to MediaRadar/CMAG for the use of their Competitive Navigator and occurrence data fields covering the period from Aug. 1 through Sept. 12. Political advertising spending figures are for the period from Sept. 3 through Election Day and were pulled on Sept. 12.