Written by Ethan Mort
Democrat Sherrod Brown’s 18-year tenure in the Senate is coming to a close after Republicans spent $251.1M against him in the Ohio Senate general election, the most ever spent to unseat a non-Presidential incumbent.That wasn’t the only record this year’s Ohio Senate general election broke. The general election set a record with $483.4M in spending, the highest for any non-Presidential election on record. It saw $76M more than the previous record holder, the 2020 Georgia Senate general election between Jon Ossoff and David Perdue. Over 222K broadcast ads aired in Ohio’s general election, a contest both parties saw as key to controlling the Senate. Republican challenger Bernie Moreno won the contest with 50.1% of the vote, besting Brown’s 46.5%.
While Democrats held an early spending advantage in Ohio’s Senate contest, Republican advertisers ended the general with a $18.8M spending advantage. Republican advertisers started outspending Democrats in September, holding a $41.3M advantage that month. This was driven by large expenditures by Republican groups. While September ad spending was close between the parties’ two largest Senate advertisers, Senate Leadership Fund (R, $33.3M) and WinSenate (D, $32.5M), Republicans saw significant support from other groups including Defend American Jobs ($31.1M) and American Crossroads ($14.5). During September, the NRSC and Moreno aired $6.3M in coordinated ads. Meanwhile, Brown and the DSCC aired $1.8M worth of coordinated ads. Republicans had 9K more broadcast airings than Democrats in September. The difference between spending and ad airings grew narrower in October, as Republicans spent $90.1M to Democrats’ $89.5M. During the final week of the election, Democrats outspent Republicans $12.8M to $9.9M.
The key to Republicans’ final spending advantage over Democrats was spending from Republican groups. While Brown held more than a 3:1 advantage in campaign and coordinated spending over Moreno, Republican groups spent $76M more than Democratic groups throughout the general election.
Across digital platforms, Democratic advertisers spent $15.2m on Google compared to $14.7M from Republicans, and Democrats outspent Republicans on Facebook $4.1M to $1.3M.
Republican advertisers outspent Democrats in nearly every major Ohio TV and radio market. Democratic advertisers only ended up with an advantage in the neighboring Ft. Wayne and Lexington markets. Cleveland saw the most spending of the general election, with $132.9M.
Immigration overwhelmingly emerged as the most mentioned issue in broadcast TV ads, with over 73K airings. The issue was mentioned in 33% of all airings for the general election. Both parties had broadcast TV ad messaging on the issue, but Republicans focused on the issue more than Democrats. Immigration made up 16% of all Democratic broadcast airings and 53% of all Republican airings.
Both parties featured Presidential candidates in their broadcast ad messaging. There were over 33K broadcast airings about Donald Trump, with Republicans contributing 82% of all Trump-related airings. Republicans also went on the attack against Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, with 21K broadcast airings linking Brown to Biden and another 16K airings attaching the incumbent Senator to Harris. On the contrary, Democratic advertisers aired no ads on broadcast TV about Harris. However, they did have over 2.9K broadcast airings about Biden, which attempted to distance Brown from the Biden administration. Biden-related ad airings from both parties did not cease after he dropped out of the Presidential race. In fact, 83% of all Biden-related Ohio Senate broadcast ad airings occurred after he dropped out on July 21st.
Democratic advertisers’ top issues in their broadcast ads were character, illegal drugs, abortion, immigration and China. Meanwhile, Republican advertisers’ top issues were immigration, Donald Trump, inflation, Joe Biden, and transgender sports. Messaging in this election was mostly negative, with 77% of all Republican broadcast airings being negative or contrast compared to 66% of Democratic airings. Despite getting outspent, Democratic advertisers did air about 18K more ads on broadcast than Republicans, with Democrats having 120K airings compared to Republicans’ 102K.
Brown had an incumbency advantage, an early spend advantage, and more than triple the candidate spending of Moreno. However, the onslaught of Republican ad spending, particularly from outside groups post-Labor Day, was enough to give Republicans an overall spending advantage by Election Day.
Interested in seeing how spending and messaging looked for the Ohio Senate general election back last August? Read more here.
