Barack Obama and John McCain have run roughly the same number of negative campaign ads on local TV during the 2008 race, TV ratings and statistics authority Nielsen has found.
Nielsen counts the number of negative local TV ads–each time a negative ad appears on local TV–at 76,238 for John McCain and 75,246 for Barack Obama. The count does not appear to include ads run nationwide on cable TV.
The hotly contested battleground state of Ohio has seen the most negative local ads of any state in the nation, with 25,434 being run there by the two campaigns combined. Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin followed Ohio in volume of negative ads.