pFrom a certain perspective, the biggest political story of 2016 was how the candidate who bought three-quarters of the political ads lost to the one whose every provocative tweet set the agenda for the day's news coverage. With the arrival of Bot Farms, microtargeted Facebook ads, and Cambridge Analytica, isn't the age of political ads on local TV coming to a close pYou might think. But you'd be wrong to the tune of 4.4 billion just in 2016. In US elections, there's a lot more at stake than the presidency, and for the campaigns running races down the ballot-for 535 congressional seats, 55 governorships, and countless elections for state legislator, mayor, judge, attorney general, and more-TV spending has gone up dramatically since 2006. The 2020 campaign shows no signs of bucking this trend. When candidates don't enjoy the name recognition and celebrity of the Presidential contenders, it's very much business as usual. They rely on the local TV newscasts, watched by thirty million peop