Story thread · 2 reports / 2 sources

GOP's war for eyeballs

axios.com · 3h · first reportShare

Republicans are starting to trounce Democrats in political spending across the Senate map, and that advantage is now showing up in one of the metrics campaigns care about most: impressions. Why it matters: Money matters in a campaign's closing weeks, but what campaigns are ultimately buying is voters' attention — and the price varies, depending on who is buying and when they place their ads. Beginning in September, campaigns and super PACs start competing for the same finite supply of advertising inventory. But the campaigns are guaranteed lower rates. Republicans are generating substantially more impressions — an estimate of the number of times an ad is seen — but their advantage isn't nearly as large as the spending disparity would suggest. The intrigue: North Carolina is the only key battleground where Republicans have been spending more for fewer impressions in the first weeks of September. Democrats generated 245 million impressions supporting former Gov. Roy Cooper, compared with