Prof. Travis N. Ridout
Professor in the School of Politics, Philosophy and Public Affairs at Washington State University. He does research on political communication, political campaigns and advertising.
BlueSky: @tnridout.bsky.social
Email: tnridout@wsu.edu
Prof. Michael M. Franz
Professor of Government and Legal Studies at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. His research focuses on campaign finance, political advertising, and interest groups.
BlueSky: @mmfranz.bsky.social
Email: mfranz@bowdoin.edu
Prof. Erika Franklin Fowler
Professor of Government at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. She does research on political and health communication, including advertising.
BlueSky: @efranklinfowler.bsky.social
Email: efowler@wesleyan.edu
U.S. Election 2024
36. The tilted playing field, and a bygone conclusion (Dr David Karpf)
37. Looking forwards and looking back: Competing visions of America in the 2024 presidential campaign (Prof John Rennie Short)
38. Brat went splat: Or the emotional sticky brand won again (Prof Ken Cosgrove)
39. Election 2024: Does money matter anymore? (Prof Cayce Myers)
40. Advertising trends in the 2024 presidential race (Prof Travis N. Ridout, Prof Michael M. Franz, Prof Erika Franklin Fowler)
41. Who won the ground wars? Trump and Harris field office strategies in 2024 (Sean Whyard, Dr Joshua P. Darr)
42. Kamala Harris: Idealisation and persecution (Dr Amy Tatum)
43. Kamala Harris campaign failed to keep Democratic social coalition together (Prof Anup Kumar)
44. Revisiting Indian-American identity in the 2024 U.S. presidential election (Dr Madhavi Reddi)
45. Harris missed an opportunity to sway swing voters by not morally reframing her message (Prof John H. Parmelee)
46. In pursuit of the true populist at the dawn of America’s golden age (Dr Carl Senior)
47. Language and the floor in the 2024 Harris vs Trump televised presidential debate (Dr Sylvia Shaw)
48. Nullifying the noise of a racialized claim: Nonverbal communication and the 2024 Harris-Trump debate (Prof Erik P. Bucy)
49. A pseudo-scientific revolution? The puzzling relationship between science deference and denial (Dr Matt Motta)
50. Amidst recent lows for women congressional candidates, women at the state level thrive (Dr Jordan Butcher)
It will take time to assess the role of the campaign generally and political advertising specifically in Trump’s 2024 presidential election victory—and we may never have a definitive answer to the question of exactly how much advertising mattered. But we offer here some initial observations about trends in political advertising this year.
Since 2010, we have led a project that has tracked political advertising in the United States and analyzed its content. Over the past eight election cycles, we have watched thousands of political ads and have tracked spending in thousands of races. When considering advertising in the 2024 presidential race, four things stand out to us:
1. It was an extremely even television ad campaign after Harris became the de facto Democratic nominee on July 22, according to our analysis of data from Vivvix CMAG, a media tracking firm. Between July 22 and October 27, there were 423,000 pro-Harris ad airings (which include ads from outside groups supportive of her campaign) on broadcast, national network and cable television, amounting to $495 million in spending. During that same time period, there were 414,000 pro-Trump ad airings, at an estimated cost of $438 million. The number of ad airings may be slightly understating the reach of Harris’ advertising because her campaign spent more on national advertising than did Trump’s campaign, meaning those national ads were seen across the country, not just in a single media market.
2. Looking solely at the candidate-sponsored advertising (including joint fundraising committees), there was a huge Harris advantage in digital advertising. We examined ads placed on Meta (including Facebook and Instagram) and ads placed on Google (including search ads, YouTube and some third-party ads) since Harris became the Democratic nominee. We found $215 million in ad spending on the two platforms by the Harris campaign (and joint fundraising committees) versus $49 million placed on the two platforms by the Trump campaign (and joint fundraising committees). Snapchat’s ad library reports about $8 million in spending by the Harris campaign and only about $60,000 in spending by the Trump campaign. Of course, these platforms do not represent the universe of digital advertising, and it is possible that Trump was spending more heavily on other platforms or on ads that appeared on third-party websites. It is also possible that outside groups made up for the spending gap between the candidates and their joint fundraising committees.
3. On television, pro-Trump advertisers prioritized smaller media markets while pro-Harris advertisers prioritized larger media markets. The bulk of political ads in the presidential campaign were aired on broadcast television in specific media markets, which are geographic areas that receive television from a particular city. In six of the seven battleground states, Harris and allies aired more ads (between July 22 and October 27) in the largest media market in each state (Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Detroit, Michigan; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Raleigh, North Carolina; Phoenix, Arizona; and Las Vegas, Nevada). The only exceptions to this rule are Atlanta, Georgia, where Trump and allies had a 400 ad-airing advantage out of more than 50,000 ads aired, and Charlotte, North Carolina, which is essentially the same size as the Raleigh media market. Pro-Trump ads were generally more common in smaller media markets. This pattern is an efficient one if the campaigns are appealing to their bases—generally in more urban areas for Harris and more rural areas for Trump—or trying to hunt for persuadable voters who may be open to voting for them.
4. It was an extremely negative ad campaign. We classified political ads into three types: positive ads (those that solely mention the favored candidate), attack ads (those that solely mention the opponent), and contrast ads (those that mention both the favored candidate and an opponent). Among pro-Harris ads, there were about the same proportion of attack airings (26 percent) and positive airings (28 percent), with the bulk of ads falling into the contrast category (46 percent). But among pro-Trump ads, fully two-thirds were attacks, and only 0.2 percent of airings were positive. In other words, almost every single ad aired by the Trump campaign and its allies mentioned Kamala Harris. Clearly, Trump ad sponsors were spending much more time trying to define Harris than to define Trump—whose image was already set in the minds of most Americans. In fact, the Trump campaign (including group and party ads) aired the lowest proportion of positive ads of any presidential campaign that we have tracked.
It is clear that Harris’ big advantage in digital advertising did not secure her victory, but we would not expect that it would. Ad effects tend to be quite small, especially in presidential elections, and much of the digital spending is to raise money rather than persuade or mobilize. Yet questions remain: did the campaigns’ relative emphasis on different types of media markets (Harris’ focus on the most urban markets and Trump’s focus on more rural markets) or their distinct issue focus make any difference? To what extent did Trump’s constant attacks on Harris land? Much research remains to be done in figuring out the impact of the well over $1 billion spent on advertising in the campaign.