Nearly all of the governors elected Tuesday dominated the airwaves in TV ads before voters went to the polls, bolstered by their campaign war chests and outside groups that advertised on their behalf.
Candidates outspent on TV ads won in only seven of the 32 races called as of early Wednesday. However, in six of those cases, the winners were incumbents, confident that they didn’t need the help of so many ads.
Of the nearly $550 million spent on ads targeting governors on the November ballot, more than 55 percent supported the winning candidates, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of preliminary data from media tracking firm Kantar Media/CMAG.
This story also appeared in Time.