Both Mr Warnock and Mr Ossoff have run ads highlighting stock sales and business transactions by Ms. Loeffler and Mr Perdue after learning about the coronavirus earlier this year but before it spread across the country.
“Kelly is for Kelly,” read a recent ad from Mr. Warnock’s campaign after Ms. Loeffler was named the richest member of the Senate. “Warnock is for us.”
Even some of the ads that are supposed to tone down the polarizing race slip in some attacks. In a recent ad from Mr. Perdue, seven women are gathered by a fireplace, chairs in a circle, complimenting the senior senator. But at the end, one woman adds, “I know David won’t let our police down and core the military.”
With all of the negative ads, TV viewers in Georgia may or may not notice the increasingly national message. In fact, the radio waves become so saturated that political ads are often run in a row, sometimes taking up entire blocks of commercials for a full television show. In the past seven days, campaigns and outside groups spent more than $ 50 million on television and broadcast 88 unique political ads across Georgia.
On some days in December, more than a third of all ads in Georgia were political. During the 5pm to 6pm time when local news programs aired and were a common target for political campaigning, more than 60 percent of all ads were political. Both numbers surpassed ad saturation during the general election when numerous races vied for airtime.
With so many ads covering the radio waves, both political strategists and ad professionals admit that returns can plummet.
“It’s like World War I, when they sat there in the trenches and shot at each other for weeks, but then nothing happened because everyone was in trenches and bunkers,” said Ken Goldstein, professor of politics at the University of San Francisco. He said it was like “bombarding impenetrable bases”.
