Trump campaign is catching up on ad spending in Georgia

ATLANTA — The spending gap on political advertising between Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign and aligned political action committees and those for former President Donald Trump got smaller over the past week.

Last week, groups supporting Harris had $10 million more in upcoming advertisements targeting Georgia voters than those allied with Trump. This week, the figures are closer, with $3.4 million more spent on pro-Harris advertisements than ads for Trump across television, radio and digital markets, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of data from the ad tracking firm AdImpact.

For ads that will air between now and the election, Democrats spent roughly $32 million on upcoming advertisements across the state for Harris, and Republicans have spent $29 million in support of Trump.

The Democrats’ spending lead is strongest in Atlanta, where they booked $3.6 million more on future ads than Republicans. Republicans’ largest spending lead is in Augusta, where they spent about $270,000 more than Democrats.

“What you see is both campaigns refusing to cede any territory in Georgia,” Republican strategist Brian Robinson said. “I think any increase in expenditure in Georgia will be met, tit for tat, by the opposing campaign.”

Since the beginning of January, spending on television advertisements is almost equal between the two parties. Democrats have spent more on digital ads.

Despite all the spending, some voters in the state said that the ads will not change their mind about whether to vote or whom to vote for.

“It’s just annoying. They’re so busy bashing each other,” said Tonya Pinson, a 59-year-old living in Barrow County who plans to vote for Trump. “We don’t need to hear that. We need to hear the policies and what they’re going to do.”

Nadine Pope, an 88-year-old in Fulton County, said she has been voting for Democrats regularly for the past 70 years. She said that when she hears ads come on television, she ignores them.

“I work around here in the house, and when I’m watching something, when commercials come on, I do something else, think about something else,” she said. “I’m not a big commercial watcher anyway. I just concentrate on whatever I’m watching. And when commercials come on, I tune it out.”

Democratic strategist Rick Dent said that “the more advertising you do, the more advertising you have to do to be effective.”

“People get turned off by it,” he said. “People get bored with them. ... So breaking through takes more and more and more and more repetition.”

Each campaign is continuing to pour millions into television and digital ads across the state each week, but spending has dropped since the surge after Harris’ announcement to run for president.

Since late August, the Trump campaign and aligned political action committees have decreased spending each week on television ads that ran in their top three markets in the state.

This trend persists for their digital advertisements as well, starting in mid-August.

For the Harris campaign, spending plateaued in September, aside from a sharp dip at the beginning of the month in Atlanta.

Digital ads for Harris have followed a similar pattern.

In the past week, Democrats ran more television ads each day than Republicans. No ads have run on television in Augusta since Friday. The area lost power due to damage from Hurricane Helene.

_____