The political geography of campaign advertising in U.S. House elections

The extent to which elections are useful instruments of accountability is closely related to the ability of citizens to acquire and utilize information about candidates running in those contests. In this paper, I examine the visibility of campaigns for the United States House of Representatives by analyzing how candidates, political parties and interest groups strategically allocate campaign advertising in media markets and congressional districts across the United States. I show that this allocation is based not only on the competitiveness of the campaign, but also according to the cost and reach of the media markets that dominate congressional districts. Overall, the findings indicate the importance of political geographic considerations for understanding the substantial variation in advertising aired both across and within congressional districts during House campaigns.