Following quickly on my “earlier post”:https://themonkeycage.org/2010/09/tracking_political_ads_in_2010.html comes “the first data”:http://election-ad.research.wesleyan.edu/2010/09/27/over-219m-spent-on-advertising-in-us-senate-and-us-house-races-since-jan-1/ from the Wesleyan Media Project.
First, the volume of advertising is up, relative to 2008:
bq. As of Sept. 15, an estimated $220 million has been spent on political advertising in races for Congress, greatly exceeding the roughly $135 million spent in U.S. House and Senate elections at this point in 2008. In the first election cycle following the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Citizens United v. FEC, the airwaves are being saturated with more House and Senate advertising, up 20 percent and 79 percent respectively in total airings.
Second, the fraction of ads by interest groups — what Citizens United would facilitate — hasn’t changed much in this cycle vs. 2008:
bq. In fact, although interest group airings represent a slightly higher proportion of total airings in House races compared to 2008 (7.3 percent compared to 6.9 percent), the proportion of interest group ads as a percentage of total U.S. Senate airings actually fell slightly (from 16.3 to 15.1 percent)
The biggest interest group spender is the Republican Governor’s Association.