“Are You Tired of the Ads Yet?”: Why Campaigns Over Saturate Pennsylvania

“Are you tired of the ads yet?”

We asked this question to a multitude of Pennsylvania voters over the past few weeks. If there is one topic to unite citizens with ideological differences— this is it.

“YES,” Jami Silar said, a Trump supporter.

“yeah I’m tired of the ads,” Andrew John Eighelberger said, a veteran who supports Kamala Harris.

“I was tired of the ads two days into it,” Gary said, a voter who has swung between Republican and Democrat in the past, but is voting for Trump in this election.

“yes, very tired,” Julia Fetchl said, a Harris-Walz supporter.

Text messages, mailboxes, television—political advertisements have been inescapable in Pennsylvania for the past few months.

“It's not about who's got the best policies anymore,” said Sandy Dunn, a Trump supporter who came out for the former president’s rally in Lancaster. "It's about who has the best criticism of the other person.”

“you just see the same one over and over and over and over,” Gary said, “and over and over again.”

“I would love— I mailed my ballot in like a week ago,” Fechl said. "So I wish that there was like some form that I could fill out and that I could check that. Like, I've already voted. Please stop advertising to me because it is just everywhere.”

Over $1 billion has been spent on political advertising in Pennsylvania. In a recent Franklin & Marshall College poll, 61% of Pennsylvanians said they were irritated at the amount of attention the state was getting in the election cycle.

“We do know with certainty that advertising is effective up to a point, after which then it becomes less effective,” Berwood Yost said, the director of the Franklin & Marshall Poll. "The question is, what's that point? The campaigns don't know. And so they continue to advertise.”

While advertisements can become ineffective, Yost says they rarely have a negative impact. People won’t switch their vote because they are tired of ads, especially in a year when both parties are over saturating in the same areas. 

"There are people who have been mildly paying attention and just now over this last weekend will really start paying attention,” Yost said. "And so the advertising could make a difference for some of them.”

Negative advertising, when the ad attacks a political opponent, can lead to confusion and an undecided or apathetic voter choosing to stay home.

But research also shows the more money spent on a campaign—the higher the turnout.

“Because of the attention, there is a sense of duty to take action,” Yost said. “Our polls show that some Pennsylvanians do feel a higher sense of obligation to go to the polls."