Wisconsin an "Epicenter of Political Advertising"

Wednesday, September 28th, 2022 -- 8:00 AM

(Sarah Lehr, Wisconsin Public Radio) If you're watching TV in Wisconsin, politics are nearly impossible to escape. 

According to Sarah Lehr of Wisconsin Public Radio, the Badger State has been an "epicenter of political advertising on television," said Michael Franz, who co-directs the Wesleyan Media Project, a collaboration among academics to track political spending.

That's especially true of the fight for Wisconsin's U.S. Senate seat between Republican incumbent Ron Johnson and Democratic challenger Mandela Barnes. Of all the U.S. Senate races throughout the country this fall, Wisconsin's saw the most TV ads between Sept. 5 and Sept. 18, according to the Wesleyan Media Project's new study.

TV ads for the face-off between Johnson and Barnes ran more than 14,100 times in that two-week period, with the number of airings roughly divided between the Republican and Democratic sides, the study found.

Georgia's U.S. Senate race came in second place for the most TV ads, with spots that aired more than 11,700 times. In that swing state, Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock is trying to fend off Republican challenger Herschel Walker.

The Badger State's TV ad blitz is not surprising, given Wisconsin's history of close elections, where the state's favor tends to swing between Republicans and Democrats, Franz said.

"Wisconsin ... has often been discussed the sort of microcosm, if you will, of many of the polarizing debates happening across the country," said Franz, a government professor at Bowdoin College. "Competitive races bring in more spending."

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