It probably seems you cannot escape the advertising for the 2nd Congressional District race in Maine.
In what may be the hottest political showdown in America, an average of 26 commercials tied to the contest aired every hour in Maine during a 10-day period that ended Oct. 25, according to the Wesleyan Media Project.
One of the most-costly political contests in the nation, Mainers are seeing more commercials this month than anywhere else in the land, all trying to convince voters either to re-elect Republican U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin on Nov. 6 or dump him in favor of Democrat Jared Golden.
Both of the contenders decry all of the money that is being spent, much of it by Super PACs they cannot control, but they are each spending at a rapid clip.
Candidates and outside organizations aired 6,312 ads between Oct. 16 and Oct. 25, more than 630 on average — and there is some indication the pace may have picked up since then.
Polls show that Poliquin and Golden are locked in a tight race whose outcome may well be decided in a ranked-choice vote election by the second- and third-place ballots cast by supporters of independents Tiffany Bond and Will Hoar.
Neither of the independents has raised any money and Bond, a Portland lawyer, has called on supporters instead to give to Maine charities, help Maine teachers with classroom projects or buy from small businesses in the state.
She said that if all of the money poured into her top rivals’ campaigns had gone to heating assistance, there would be many fewer poor Mainers shivering this winter.
Those forking over the money, though, are more interested in who controls Congress than they are in Bond’s notion.
During the entire midterm campaign season that began last year, only three districts in the country have seen more ads than Maine’s sprawling, mostly rural 2nd District.
The others — in Montana, Georgia and New York — are also in areas where advertising rates are comparatively cheap, as they are in Maine.
According to Kantar Media, $17.8 million has been spent on television advertising in Maine’s 2nd District through Oct. 25, the 10th-highest total in the nation. That bought 30,984 ads since the start of the race in 2017.
Data gathered by the Wesleyan Media Project found that during the 10-day period that began Oct. 16, the party parity in the commercials was remarkably close, with those helping Democratic challenger Jared Golden outnumbering those for Poliquin by 170 — less than a 3 percent difference.
During the entire campaign, however, Democrats have aired about 10 percent more ads than the GOP.
But GOP-connected super PACs and political organizations have spent more on ads for Poliquin than their Democratic counterparts.
There have been 6,164 ads from them aiming to help Poliquin — some boosting him and others attacking Golden — while the Democrats put on 5,648.
But Golden’s own campaign has aired more ads than Poliquin’s campaign by a margin of 10,560 to 6,738.
The counts of commercials look at buys made for television and national cable. There may well be local cable ads that do not show up in the totals and there are many ads on social media and websites that are not included.
Across the nation, a bit more than 1 million congressional race ads have aired for the midterm election. That means the Maine 2nd accounts for about 3 percent of the total volume.
That does not sound like much, but it is one of 435 seats — so it is accounting for about 15 times more advertising than the average congressional race.
During the entire campaign, three ads have been shown for the 2nd District race for every two shown in the gubernatorial contest in Maine, including the primaries both the Democrats and Republicans held to pick their nominees.
The top image shows a screen shot from one of Democratic congressional hopeful Jared Golden’s campaign commercials in Maine’s 2nd District. Bottom, a screen shot from a television advertisement by U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin’s campaign this fall.
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