Michael Bloomberg is setting records for television advertising spending in the 2020 presidential primaries and we expect more records in the general election. The last two cycles have seen Democrats out-advertise Republicans, but how many votes did it earn them? Erika Franklin Fowler and Michael Franz find that the 2018 cycle was still dominated by television advertising focused on health care, a big change from 2016's personal attacks on Donald Trump. The go-to experts from the Wesleyan Media Project show we're now seeing more advertising, more negativity, and more outside groups. They expect more of the same in 2020.
Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore under CC by SA 2.0. https://flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/48603879096/
The Science of Politics