KUSA—The major party candidates for governor of Colorado spent a hefty amount of cash just trying to win their respective nominations and the spending to come could dwarf anything in the state’s history.
The final campaign finance reports for the primary aren't due until Monday, but we do have fairly recent numbers to work with.
They show Republican nominee Walker Stapleton's campaign raised $2 million and spent all but $271,000, as of last week.
He also got help from an outside group called "Better Colorado Now", which raised another million for the cause.
That's a decent amount of spending on a primary, but Democrat Jared Polis went bigger. A lot bigger.
Polis gave himself spent what to most people would be a fortune-- $11.3 million of his own personal money. and has $670,000 left, as of last week.
His campaign also raised another $100,000 or so from donations and Polis got help from an outside group called “Bold Colorado” to the tune of about $400,000.
And that was all just to get on the ballot for November.
By the time we get there, political experts we talked with predict this race will cost another $40 million to $250 million.
That’s a wide range. The exact amount of spending will depend largely on how close this race appears to be.
You can expect the political ads to ramp up between now and election day, November 6.
If you’re concerned about political ads, there's another day to watch out for: September 7.
That's 60 days before the election. By federal regulations, candidates have the right in those 60 days to buy TV ads from stations at what’s called the “lowest unit rate.”
It means they are entitled to purchase ad time for the lowest price that any advertiser paid. In effect, the campaigns get the bulk discount that big commercial advertisers are able to negotiate for themselves.
The idea is to help candidates communicate over the public's airwaves.
It also helps all those millions go just a little further.
