(Dan Tri) - Both candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump spent most of their donations on advertising with the hope of influencing American voters in a way that was beneficial to them.
Lawn banners - the simplest form of political advertising in the US (Photo: NBC News). If you live in a battleground state, even the most indifferent American cannot forget that the race for the White House is underway. Lawn signs, large public banners, direct messages to voters' phones, television and social media ads, political advertising is everywhere, all the time, forcing voters to watch. As the United States heads into one of the closest elections in modern history, both Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Donald Trump are making final efforts, spending large sums of money to attract voters. In the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, voters are witnessing what is arguably the most complex advertising campaign in American political history. Record spending The 2024 presidential election is likely to set a record for spending, with the majority of that money going to advertising. According to Financial Times/AdImpact data as of October 27 , Ms. Harris and her allied political action committees (PACs) had spent more than $1.2 billion on advertising. Mr. Trump’s figure was just over half that, about $650 million. The bulk of that money, about $1.4 billion, was spent in battleground states, with Pennsylvania attracting the most money — nearly $390 million. “Almost all of the commercials we have now are political ads,” said Tracee Malik, a real estate broker in Pittsburgh and the surrounding area. In terms of content, Ms. Harris’s ads focused on her experience as a prosecutor, her middle-class background, and abortion rights. They also criticized Mr. Trump as only interested in the rich and “too unstable to be in charge.” Meanwhile, Mr. Trump’s most-watched ads were about the economy, criticizing the Biden-Harris administration for the rising cost of living. The content of the ads also varied from state to state. In Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada, Mr. Trump attacked Ms. Harris on immigration. In Georgia and North Carolina, Democratic ads focused on abortion rights. Local issues were also included in the ads. In North Carolina, Democrats linked Mr. Trump to Mark Robinson, the gubernatorial candidate embroiled in a “suspicion” of posting racist comments on a porn website, while Republicans ran messages criticizing the Biden-Harris administration for its slow recovery from Hurricane Helene. In the final days before the election, both Democrats and Republicans are adjusting their ads to make the most of their last dollars. In the first two weeks of October, Trump and his allies spent a third of their total TV advertising budget criticizing Harris’s proposal to fund gender-affirming care for transgender inmates, a change in Trump’s tactics from previous months . Meanwhile, Harris and her allies continued to spend money on ads about taxes, healthcare , and Harris’s personal attributes, while downplaying abortion rights. Democrats also appeared to have stopped focusing on immigration and crime, which they had done in previous weeks to counter Republican attacks on the topic. Advertising tactics Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump are making final efforts to attract voters before the election (Photo: Reuters). Michael Traugott, a professor at the University of Michigan, said political advertising serves many different purposes. "Some ads are about specific issues, some are about raising concerns, others are about encouraging or discouraging voters to vote," Traugott told the Midland Daily News. Traugott pointed out that the level of spending by candidates this year is unprecedented, thanks to political campaign committees and the ability for voters to donate independently. "A lot of people are exhausted. The number of ads they see and the number of emails they receive is very high," he said. Social media is the newest and increasingly important form of advertising. Here, politicians can target small groups of voters and fine-tune content based on age, gender or even interests. Democrats have spent more than $10 million to build "normal"-looking Facebook accounts to promote news favorable to Ms. Harris. They also use tools to target women on the issue of abortion rights. According to statistics, more than 25% of Ms. Harris's Facebook and Instagram ads were viewed by at least two-thirds of women. None of the ads recorded a similar gap with men. Ads can also be divided into three categories: "positive" (talking well about themselves), "negative" (talking badly about their opponents) or "emphasizing differences". Most of the Republican ads are in the "negative" group, perhaps because voters know Mr. Trump so well that Republicans think there is no need to talk about him too much, most of the Democratic ads are in the "emphasizing differences" group, while the number of "positive" and "negative" ads is not too different. "I hate these ads. If you base them on the ads, you don't want either of them," said Vallon Laurence, a US Navy veteran living in Atlanta, Georgia, complaining about political ads.
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