Indiana Senate race generates most advertising in the nation

Maureen Groppe | USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — How competitive is Indiana's Senate race?

The multi-candidate GOP primary combined with a top Democratic target has resulted in the contest topping the charts for most television ads aired this year among Senate races across the country, according to a report released Thursday by the independent Wesleyan Media Project.

And that tally doesn't take into account the more than $2 million in ads that started running Thursday by an outside group critical of Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly's opposition to the GOP tax cut package. The time period included in the analysis also doesn't capture ads run last year by former state Rep. Mike Braun, one of the three Republicans running in the May 8 primary to take on Donnelly.

Still, Senate race ads by the candidates themselves or outside groups have aired more than 6,700 times from January through March 12 at an estimated cost of $1.9 million. The next heaviest amount of Senate race advertising is in Wisconsin, where ads in the race for the seat held by Sen. Tammy Baldwin have aired nearly 4,900 times for an estimated cost of $1.1 million.

In Indiana, about half of the ads have been paid for by the GOP candidates — Braun and U.S. Reps. Todd Rokita and Luke Messer.

Braun, who is largely self-funding his campaign, was the first on TV. The ads he ran last fall touted the national auto parts distribution business he founded in Jasper, Ind., and criticized "career politicians." Two of the three ads he's aired so far this year blame politicians for the loss of jobs to other countries.

He was criticized for another ad which used the deaths of an Uber driver and Indianapolis Colts linebacker Edwin Jackson to call for tougher immigration policies. The drunken-driving suspect arrested in the fatal crash is a Guatemalan citizen who was living in the U.S. illegally. Deborah Monroe, wife of Uber driver Jeffrey Monroe, asked Braun to remove her husband's name and photo from the ad.

The ad Rokita put on TV in February pushed a multitude of conservative buttons with images that included Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, a kneeling Colin Kaepernick, presidential inauguration protesters, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and shots of Rokita reading to his sons, shooting a gun, holding a beer while shaking a mechanic's hand and walking through a cornfield. The ad also includes footage of a military cemetery, even though the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs does not like its cemeteries being used "for the expression of partisan or political viewpoints."

Messer's children vouch for him in ads touting his message to "shake up the Senate." Messer has been criticized for moving his family to Washington, a step he said he took to be able to spend more time with them. In one ad, Messer's daughters mention that he drives them to school. In the other, he's shown coaching his son's basketball team.

Donnelly, who is unopposed for the Democratic nomination, has not aired any TV ads. But the Senate Majority PAC, a super PAC created to help Senate Democrats, has been on the air defending Donnelly's opposition to the GOP tax bill.

Still, GOP groups had aired nearly twice as many ads in Indiana through March 12 as Democratic groups, according to the Weslyan Media Project.

Their report is based on data provided by Kantar Media/CMAG for broadcast television, national network and national cable television advertising. It does not include local cable advertising.

Donnelly is considered one of the most vulnerable senators seeking re-election this year because he's the only statewide-elected Democrat in a state that voted for Trump by 19 points.

After Indiana and Wisconsin, the Senate races drawing the most advertising through mid March were in West Virginia (2,675 airings); Missouri (2,301 airings); Mississippi (1,003 airings) and Tennessee (939 airings).