Dem U.S. Senate candidate Mandela Barnes and the groups backing him have significantly closed the spending gap with GOP U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson and his allies on paid media over the final four weeks of the race.
As of Sept. 27, Johnson, of Oshkosh, and the groups backing him had a $3.2 million advantage through Election Day on TV, radio and digital, according to AdImpact.
As of information posted shortly before noon, that advantage was down to a little more than $715,000 from today through the election. Johnson and his backers had $14.5 million reserved compared to $13.8 million by Barnes and his supporters.
Republicans also have an advantage in gross ratings points — the number of times voters see ads — of nearly 13 percent for the final four weeks, 100,287-88,947.
The closing gap comes as Barnes ramped up his spending. The lieutenant governor, who announced last week he raised $20.1 million during the third quarter, secured $5.8 million on paid media in August, according to AdImpact. That jumped to $8.6 million in September. Between Oct. 1 and Election Day, he had $7.3 million reserved.
That’s nearly $21.7 million.
Johnson laid down nearly $8.4 million over that span. But he’s also running joint ads with the National Republican Senatorial Committee. The NRSC gets the candidate rate for those spots, but a portion of the ad has to focus on national issues. That joint effort totals more than $7.1 million.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has secured nearly $1.1 million in joint ads with Barnes over that span.
