Americans are heading to the polls today in droves after weathering endless campaign ads designed to influence their votes — especially in presidential battleground states such as Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Here’s what you need to know about the advertising assault:
Team Clinton aired three times more ads than Team Trump
More than 500,000 broadcast and national cable TV ads have aired in the presidential race during the general election, and Team Hillary Clinton accounted for 75 percent of them.
That’s according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of data provided by ad tracking firm Kantar Media/CMAG, which showed that the Democratic presidential nominee and her allies combined to air more than 383,000 TV ads from June 12 through Nov. 6, while Republican Donald Trump and those supporting his presidential bid combined to air about 125,000.
Clinton’s own campaign, which raised $513 million versus the $255 million raised by Trump, was alone responsible for more than 282,000 ads — about 55 percent of all the TV ads in the race since mid-June.
During this period, Priorities USA Action — the main pro-Clinton super PAC, which raised more than $175 million — nearly aired as many TV ads than Trump’s own campaign. Priorities USA Action aired about 77,000 TV ads, according to Kantar Media/CMAG. Trump’s campaign aired about 85,000.
The Republican nominee’s biggest ally on the airwaves was the National Rifle Association, which aired about 14,000 pro-Trump or anti-Clinton TV ads since mid-June.
