Advertising

The Washington Post this week backed out of a “Fire Elon Musk” advertising order that was to run as a wrap on some of its Tuesday editions, according to the advocacy group Common Cause. 

The group said it signed a $115,000 agreement with The Post to run the ad that would have covered the front and back page of the Tuesday paper as well as a full-page ad with the same theme inside the paper. It said it planned to purchase the ad in collaboration with the Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund.

This year’s Super Bowl commercials went for easy laughs and nostalgia, largely steering clear of controversy and leaving the surprises on the football field, where the Philadelphia Eagles dominated the Kansas City Chiefs.

Eugene Levy’s eyebrows flew off and buzzed around after he ate some Little Caesars. Four old ladies went on a joy ride in a commercial for WeatherTech, while sloths had a case of the Mondays in an ad for Coors Light. And British singer Seal became an actual seal, sad that he couldn’t hold Mountain Dew with his flippers.

Ben Affleck's 2025 Super Bowl commercial return received mixed reviews.

British singer Seal and "Fast & Furious" star Vin Diesel also received varied responses to their respective Super Bowl ads.

For his part, Affleck brought back the DunKings for Super Bowl LIX, but he was missing Matt Damon and Tom Brady. Instead, Affleck was joined by his brother, Casey Affleck, and former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick and his girlfriend, Jordon Hudson.

We've all seen a lot of political ads lately. But in battleground states, it's a tsunami. Jack Levis is an independent voter in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, which makes him one of the most desirable voters on the planet: "Emails, texts, phone calls, it's in my news feed, it's in social media. In the last two days, I counted, I had 30 spam emails in there all about the election," he said. "It's unbelievable."

Not to mention TV and radio commercials. "Come on, it's everywhere!" he laughed. "Are you kidding me? Ad after ad after ad!"

According to AdImpact, an advertising analytics firm that tracks political advertising, projects a record $10.2 billion will be spent across all races in 2024. This would be an over 13% increase from the $9.02 billion spent in the 2020 elections. With polls indicating a very close Presidential election, the biggest benefactors of this ad spending largesse are the local television stations in seven swing states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada.

A Florida judge extended a temporary restraining order until after the election that blocks the state government from threatening to take legal action against television stations over pro-abortion ads. 

Floridians Protecting Freedom, the group behind the Amendment 4 Right to Abortion Initiative to enshrine abortion in the state constitution, which is on the ballot on Election Day, filed a lawsuit earlier this month against Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo and former health department counsel John Wilson, following threats from...

Kamala Harris raised more than $1 billion for her presidential campaign … which ultimately failed. In the afterglow of stunning defeat, some Democrats are now asking how she could have possibly spent anywhere near that much money and still lost her shot at the White House.

The Harris campaign finished out the race with at least $20 million in debt, two sources familiar told Politico’s Christopher Cadelago, who wrote on X Wednesday night that of the $1 billion Harris had raised, only $118 million remained in cash as of October 16.

She took in more than $1.2 billion in contributions. Her donors numbered in the millions, including many new to the political process. But in the end, it didn’t matter.

Vice President Kamala Harris lost her bid for the White House on Wednesday despite spending most of the funds on an expansive ground operation, staffing and a flood of ads. President-elect Donald Trump won a second term with half of what Harris’s campaign spent.

In October, weeks before the 2024 election, the word was out: Vice President Kamala Harris had fundraised north of $1 billion. The haul, the New York Times reported upon breaking the news, was historic because of the short period of time, just three months, that it flooded in.