With roughly 100 days left until the fall midterm elections in November, campaign spending by House and Senate candidates looks to topple 2014 races, previously the most expensive off-year election, where hopefuls and outside groups invested $3.8 billion to entice voters, The Hill reported.
Already $1.6 billion has been spent so far for ads, staff, fundraising and administrative costs, a figure that does not include gubernatorial races which aren't required to file campaign finance reports to the Federal Election Commission. During the final sprint to election day, parties and outside groups are expected to hike campaign spending using funds reserved for the final push, according to a spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that monitors campaign spending.
"The trend is generally upward over time," said Douglas Weber, senior researcher at the Center for Responsive Politics, who attributed a greater number of candidates running for office this year as one reason the amount of campaign dollars spent was so high.
"If you get more candidates who are running, more activity on both sides … you have incumbents who are spending more to defend themselves," he explained.
Breaking down the numbers, Democrats who want to take control of the House so far have spent or booked $135 million in airtime on television advertising. Republican spending outpaces Democrats to-date with $146 million already spent or earmarked for House races.
In the Senate, a total of $170 million has been invested by Republican and Democratic candidates so far, combined with another $230 million in airtime booked.
"These numbers, volume-wise, suggest we might see a record number of ads this time," said Mike Franz, co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project which keeps track of television advertising in political races. "There are a lot of ads on TV."
Outside groups investing in their favored candidate for the House accounts for a lion's share of the midterm races, with super PACS on both the left and the right spending more for TV airtime than the candidates themselves, according to the Hill.
And, spending by wealthy individuals is expected to accelerate leading into the fall, with billionaires like the Koch brothers network providing millions for Republican races and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has already pledged $80 million to elect Democrats to Congress.
Races for the Senate seeing the greatest spending so far, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, are Massachusetts, Texas, Florida and Indiana. For the House, races in Georgia, Maryland, Montana and California have seen the highest dollars spent to-date.
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