With less than two weeks until Election Day, the spending margin on future bookings for political advertisements by the presidential candidates is narrowing in Georgia.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign and supporting political action committees booked more than $25 million in political advertisements to run over the next two weeks, about $7 million more than former President Donald Trump’s campaign and supporters have scheduled.
Last week, the Democrats had a $13 million ad spending advantage over Republicans for the final three weeks of the race.
The Democratic spending advantage lies in radio and television ads. Democrats have bought $4.3 million in radio ads leading up to the election, compared with Republicans’ $1.5 million. On broadcast and cable TV, Democrats scheduled $20 million while Republicans have $15.7 million planned.
In the past week, Democratic spending on TV ads rocketed, as over $12 million in ads supporting Harris aired last week. The week before, Democrats aired roughly $6 million in TV ads across the state.
Republican spending on TV ads has also increased, but not as sharply. They spent about $8 million last week and $6 million the week before.
Bob Mangham, a 79-year-old from Lamar County, said he has noticed more ads on TV and in the mail. He has already cast a ballot for Trump.
“It doesn’t bother me a bit,” he said. “I know who I’m going to vote for, so I don’t care how many ads they run.”
Both campaigns follow a similar schedule when airing these ads throughout the day. The majority of ads this year have aired from 6 to 8 p.m.
TV ads for both campaigns also target similar regions of the state. Atlanta is the largest market for TV ads this year, followed by Savannah and Augusta.
Digital spending has picked up for both parties since the beginning of October. Democrats have greatly increased their digital spending in the past week, when they laid out $5 million on digital ads, compared to $3 million the week before. Republicans spent $3.2 million last week and $2.6 million the week before.
Like TV ads, online ads targeted Atlanta the most. The next top markets for online ads are Savannah and Macon.
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