President Barack Obama‘s re-election campaign has already spent over $1 million on thousands of ads, ABC News reported Wednesday.
The president’s campaign ran more than 5,000 television ads over just six days last month in Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin.
The Republican-aligned Americans for Prosperity ran nearly 3,000 ads during the same period, and has pledged to spend $6 million challenging Obama in the six states where his ads have run. Obama’s fundraising total exceeds $131 million, much of which will go towards advertising, ABC wrote.
“Advertising market placement is like a tell, and it is clear that the Obama campaign views these battleground states as most important at this stage of the game,” said Michael Franz, co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project.
North Carolina has so far seen Obama’s ads run most frequently, but the ads have run hundreds of times in cities in all six states. Obama’s first round of ads began in November 2011.
Experts have noted that the increase in spending by outside groups rather than candidates adds another dimension to the process of exploring ad efficacy and influence.