BLOOMBERG: Campaigners have spent about $98 million more on advertising this year than their 2012 predecessors.
About $100 million has already been poured into broadcast and cable television ads courting voters for the Feb. 9 vote, according to estimates from Kantar Media’s CMAG and an analysis by Ken Goldstein, a Bloomberg Politics analyst and University of San Francisco professor. In comparison, about $2 million had been spent in New Hampshire by this point in the 2012 race that ultimately came down to Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.
The spending in New Hampshire shows how American politics is being transformed by U.S. Supreme Court decisions in recent years that cleared the path for unbridled spending in elections. The sheer number of candidates and the lack of an incumbent in the race has also intensified the flow of money.
