The Michigan Campaign Finance Network has tracked more than $8 million dollars in political ads ahead of the August primaries and officials with the group say that number will only continue to rise.
Craig Mauger is with the Michigan Campaign Finance Network. He said this year will see high spending across the board.
“In 2018 Michigan is going to elect a new Governor, a new Attorney General, and fill every seat in the State Legislature. So there’s a lot at stake and groups are starting to up their spending as that nears.”
Mauger said in the gubernatorial race those costs are being driven by a contested primary race for both democrats and republicans, among other things.
“In Michigan we don’t have a huge track record of having competitive races for the primary nomination on each side where a lot of groups are spending money and then also having a competitive general election race.”
$2. 6 million dollars of that has come from democratic gubernatorial candidate Shri Thanedar alone.
Mauger said this may be a case where money isn’t enough to clinch an election.
“Now that other candidates are running more ads and getting their names out there more perhaps his support has dropped a little bit as others have increased their spending.”
Recent polls put Shri roughly 20 points behind Gretchen Whitmer on the democratic side.
The next closest gubernatorial race spending comes from Build a Better Michigan, a group backing democrat Gretchen Whitmer, at just over $800-thousand