Now, as the campaign winds down and Election Day draws near, many are anxious to see the political ads disappear.

It's not just television and cable that candidates and supporting groups use to broadcast their messages, but digital platforms.

Social media and YouTube are growing in use as advertising vehicles.

Dan Barnes is a political media consultant connected to the company Medium Buying that does ad planning, buying and tracking.

He breaks down the numbers on how this is the most expensive governor's race in Kentucky history, but he first tells us what medium buying is and what they do.

We're a political media buying company.

We do media planning, media buying and competitive tracking for political campaigns.

And we started sharing a lot of information on Twitter, which is now X, Right?

Right.

When we founded the company 2015, 2016, and there was a huge appetite for some insight into how political campaigns were spending their money on television and radio and streaming.

And it's been a great resource for us to just provide some transparency in terms of political media buying and to share a little bit about what we do every day.

Right.

So as they look at this Kentucky governor's race, because it's not just Kentucky journalism folks who are looking I mean, nationwide, people are saying, what's the media buying, saying and read posting on X as it is now?

Talk to us about the Kentucky governor's race, where these candidates stand and where the money is coming from.

We've seen in the general election almost $50 million spent on television and radio by the two sides, by the Democratic side and by the Republican side.

It's the most expensive gubernatorial race in Kentucky history now by a long shot.

I think it's important to kind of take a step back.

Citizens United, which was decided in 2010.

So we're 13 years into that decision that has flooded the political marketplace in the US with tons of money.

And that's one of the reasons you're seeing so much money spent on this race in Kentucky.

And the other reason is the fragmentation of the media.

People are consuming media in different ways.

You don't just watch broadcast TV like you did 20 or 30 years ago.

You're watching multiple different mediums, multiple different platforms.

And so instead of spending less money to reach more people, you're spending more money to reach less people.

And that's a big change for campaigns.

And there's a huge investment still in broadcast TV and cable TV, but you have to spend on streaming and you have to spend on digital and you have to spend via text to reach voters.

You have to find the voters wherever they are.

And it's a really, really difficult thing.

So break down for us how it looks from the Beshear campaign and from Daniel Cameron's campaign.

The campaigns, the amount that's being raised and spent.

Yeah, the Beshear campaign has has outraised the Cameron campaign head to head by quite a significant margin.

I mean, at the end of the day, you might see Beshear raise $20 million for this general election.

That's a lot of money.

He was able to get up on television right after the primary, which was a, you know, a big advantage.

He's been able to do a lot of things via his media campaign.

He's running multiple ads at any given time.

He's been able to run positive messaging, response messaging, contrast messaging, negative messaging, all kinds of different ads.

And I think it's made a difference in the race.

Right.

And he, like you said, was able to do that right after the primary and he stayed up the entire time.

So talk about the consistency of once you actually go on air to stay there, not to dip in and dip out.

Voters have really short memories.

You know, the effectiveness of a TV ad, does it last a very long time.

So what you have to do is you have to be in front of people constantly in the short campaigns, been able to do that.

Cameron got up in the late summer, hasn't been able to spend as much money as Beshear has because he hasn't raised as much money.

I think he's done a really good job with the resources that he's had and he's running more ads now here late.

The you know, the difference has been made up by outside groups, by super PACs.

And so the Democrats have outspent the Republicans overall, if you include outside groups, which you should, because they're effective and they matter in the campaign.

But the, you know, differences in extreme, the Republican outside groups have been able to largely make up that difference.

Right.

And that's the reporting Joe saga was able to unveiled during this week as well for Kentucky Public Radio showed that those super PACs are making a difference and not necessarily an equalizer, but certainly can help a candidate who may have a deficit from their own campaign.

There's been a constellation of outside groups on the Republican side.

On the Democratic side, you've just had the DGA.

The Democratic Governors Association has been the only outside group that's played a significant role in the campaign.

On the Republican side, you've had the RGA, which has been they're fully invested in the campaign.

They spent over $10 million on television, and they've helped Cameron a lot.

But you've had Club for Growth, you've had School Freedom Fund, you've had Protect Freedom PAC, so you've had a Constellation of outside groups on the Republican side that have helped make up the difference.

So let's talk about the media markets, because I find this really fascinating about how buying an ad in Lexington may cost more or less, I would think probably less than maybe northern Kentucky, Cincinnati, because northern Kentucky doesn't have its own television conglomerate, the Cincinnati market that you're dealing with.

Right.

There are ten media markets in Kentucky plus hazard.

AM-T Which most campaigns like like to get up on because they have a different, different focus for an outside group right now to fully deliver one message, 1000 points of television, which means the average person sees your ad ten times, it's over $1,000,000 just to deliver one message.

You mentioned, you know, the northern Kentucky market, which is a significant player in this campaign.

Andy Beshear won Kenton and Campbell Counties in 2019 and came close in Boone.

He'd like to duplicate that performance this time.

They were able to get up in the Cincinnati media market, which is about 10% of turnout, give or take.

They were able to get up in the Cincinnati media market before anyone else was, and they had the airwaves up there to themselves for a long time.

Outside groups, Cameron's up up in northern Kentucky, the Cincinnati media market now.

We'll see how that all shakes out.

But if Beshear is able to hold on to Kenton and Campbell, you might look that look at that as a big reason why.

Well, we'll have more from Brian's tomorrow as they talk some more about ad placement as pivotal to election campaign strategy and the lesson the governor's race in Kentucky could provide for future races.

That's tomorrow night on Kentucky Edition, the night before the election.

Be sure to join us for Kentucky tonight.

A panel of veteran political operatives will be here to assess the campaigns and tell what to look for on election night.

And you can send us your questions as always.

That's Monday night at eight Eastern, seven Central right here on Katy's Kentucky tonight.

And then another programing note on election night.

Join us at seven Eastern, six Central right here after the Kentucky edition for our live coverage of the 2023 election.

We'll have the numbers, the candidates speeches and, of course, the best analysis from Al Cross, Trey Grayson, Bob Savage and others.

That's all right here on election night, November the seventh Tuesday on KCET.