US presidential election advertising budgets are off the charts this year, though it is not clear how well they work in swaying voters’ minds.
Around $1.2 billion will be spent on ads for the presidential vote alone, according to ad analyst MediaRadar CMAG, out of a total of $12 billion for congressional and other races being decided on November 5.
This latter figure is close to triple that of the 2016 election, but the upward trend goes back even further.
“The biggest change happened when Obama was running in 2008,” said Mike Franz, co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project, which studies political ads.
Until then, candidates often used government funding for their campaigns under laws that placed strict limits on spending.
But Obama realized he could raise significantly more money through the newfound internet opportunities that were developing at the time, said Franz.
“The internet has made it very easy …