How you can track the money funding political ads on NC airwaves

Months away from the general election, North Carolinians have already seen millions of dollars worth of political advertising on their televisions in 2020. Now you can find out who's behind those ads.

Posted 4:20 p.m. Feb 27, 2020 — Updated 5:34 p.m. Feb 27, 2020

Tyler Dukes

, WRAL investigative reporter

RALEIGH, N.C. — Months away from the general election, North Carolinians have already seen millions of dollars worth of political advertising on their televisions in 2020.

But who's behind all that money?

Now you can find out, with the help of WRAL's 2020 political ad tracker.

WRAL 2020 political ad tracker

We're using data from Kantar Media's Campaign Media Analysis Group, which monitors political advertising on broadcast networks and provides estimated spending on each ad.

We're focusing on North Carolina's races for governor, lieutenant governor, U.S. Senate, U.S. House and the state legislature, examining spending since Jan. 1. We're not tracking the big money flowing into the race for president, because you can find detailed breakdowns on that contest – both across the country and in North Carolina specifically – through FiveThirtyEight.

You can also cut through the noise on North Carolina's airwaves through WRAL's partnership with PolitiFact, the Pulitzer Prize-winning organization fact-checking claims by elected officials and others on its Truth-O-Meter scale.

We hope our 2020 political ad tracker will help viewers peer behind the curtain of political money in what will likely be the most expensive election in American history. As we continue to march toward the general election, we're planning additional tools that will allow you to learn more about the ads in your area and their backers. So expect significant upgrades to our tracker in the coming months.

But we also want your feedback. What do you want to know about these political commercials, their messaging and the money behind them? Send us a note by email, or contact us through the @NCCapitol Twitter account.

See an ad you want us to fact check? Send us a suggestion here.

In the meantime, the data powering the 2020 Political Ad Tracker updates daily, so check back every weekday afternoon for new stats as the ad money continues to flow.