Election Day is almost here, which means we will finally be free from those political ads.

It feels like every year we are served more and more, it's exhausting.

No one liked political ads and sometimes they feel slightly useless. If my Facebook timeline is any indication, most people made their choice months ago.

Whether they are useless or not, they are plenty and they are relentless.

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And, they are expensive!

Just how expensive, you ask?

Insanely expensive...

How much is spent on political advertising?

Just last week alone, there was just under $1 billion spent.

That is in just a one-week period.

Let that sink in for a moment...$1,000,000,000 was spent in 7 days on political advertising.

I went to the St. Jude website to see what $1 billion could do.

A $1 billion donation to St. Jude would:

  • Provide about 100,000 CT Scans
  • Cover the cost of 200,000 days in the ICU
  • Provide 1 million school supply kits
  • Provide 100,000,000 platelet tests

But that's just one week, what is spent during an entire election cycle?

This election cycle started in January of 2023 and is up over $1 billion from the last presidential election.

This year, experts are estimating that $10.5 billion will be spent.

$10,500,000,000

That is an unfathomable amount of money.

Using the St. Jude example again, that would be over 1 million CT scans.

Community Food Bank of New Jersey states that a $1 donation is equal to 3 meals, so that means with $10,500,000,000 they could provide 31,500,000,000 meals to families in need.

Now, this $10.5 billion is not just spent on the presidential campaigns of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, this also includes state and local elections as well.

However, to think that over $10 billion is being spent on politicians this election cycle makes me a little sick.

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