Consider for a moment this number, 66,636.
As of October 24, that is the number of political ads aired in North Carolina this election year. And just for state level races, think governor on down.
Now money in politics, that should not surprise you. But these numbers might. "The estimated cost of those ads is about $32 million." That’s Ben Weider from the Center for Public Integrity. The totals reached by poring through data primarily compiled by Kantar Media.
Their findings show with a tab so far of $25.3 million, North Carolina’s governor’s race is now the second most expensive in the country, behind Missouri.
As of July 1 of this year, Democrat Roy Cooper hadn’t spent a dime on television ads. That’s certainly not the case today. Weider estimates Cooper "has spent about $10 million." Which ranks Cooper as the second highest candidate spender on TV ads in any governor’s race in the country.
Republican Pat McCrory is farther down that list at $5.8 million spent.
And it’s not just North Carolina’s governor’s race that’s racking up big bills. Take the North Carolina attorney general’s race between Democrat Josh Stein and Republican Buck Newton. "We have an estimate of a little over $3 million in that and a little over 8,000 ads." That's not chump change adds Weider "for a farther down the ballot race a decent amount of spending." In that race the Democrat is again out spending the Republican.
But Weider points out that could change. "You, in some cases might see big sums of spending coming in from outside groups who maybe have figured out that a particular race could be flipped one way or another with a last second push."
Overall political ad buys in North Carolina are already up about 33 percent compared to the total spent in 2012. And Weider says more is on the way. "It’s not uncommon for half of the spending or more than half of all the spending in an election to come in the last few weeks."
In other words, buckle up.
