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NC Home To 2nd Most Expensive Gov. Race In Country

Visual representation of state level political ads aired as of October 24th
Center For Public Integrity
Visual representation of state level political ads aired as of October 24th

Visual representation of state level political ads aired as of October 24th
Center For Public Integrity
Visual representation of state level political ads aired as of October 24th

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.

Copyright 2016 WFAE

Tom Bullock decided to trade the khaki clad masses and traffic of Washington DC for Charlotte in 2014. Before joining WFAE, Tom spent 15 years working for NPR. Over that time he served as everything from an intern to senior producer of NPR’s Election Unit. Tom also spent five years as the senior producer of NPR’s Foreign Desk where he produced and reported from Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Haiti, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon among others. Tom is looking forward to finally convincing his young daughter, Charlotte, that her new hometown was not, in fact, named after her.
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