The 2020 election arrived six months ago on Colorado’s TV screens and reached $7.2 million in political advertising by the end of the year.
But that’s just a drop in the 2020 advertising bucket. One election watcher predicts Colorado will see $163 million worth of TV and digital ads this year just in the presidential and U.S. Senate contests.
“There’s enough evidence right now that Senate control could be in play in 2020. That really attracts the advertisers,” said Travis Ridout, a Washington State University political scientist and co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project, which tracks political advertising. “I expect we’ll see a lot more from the Trump campaign than we did in 2016. I expect that small-dollar democratic donors are going to empty their wallets to defeat Trump in 2020.”
Coloradans already are getting attention from presidential candidates as the state prepares to hold its first presidential primary election in 20 years on Super Tuesday, March 3. Then there’s the nationally watched U.S. Senate contest, where Cory Gardner is one of the top Democratic targets in the Nov. 3 election.