Friedberg @ 00:32:52Right
politics
The January 5, 2021 Georgia U.S. Senate runoffs will become the most expensive Senate runoff elections in U.S. history, with total spending on the races exceeding $100 million (and potentially reaching $100–200 million), especially on political advertising in Georgia.
I think we're going to see literally the biggest, the biggest funding for a Senate runoff race in history, by far. Don't you think? Zach's, like, probably north of $100 million being spent, maybe 100 to $200 million being spent on advertisements in Georgia to try and get people to go vote one way or the other.View on YouTube
Explanation
Evidence after the January 5, 2021 Georgia runoffs shows that Friedberg’s prediction was essentially correct on both key points:
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Most expensive Senate runoffs in U.S. history
- OpenSecrets-based reporting found the Perdue–Ossoff race spent nearly $470 million and the Loeffler–Warnock race nearly $363 million, with both races individually surpassing the previous record for the most expensive Senate race (the 2020 North Carolina Senate race at about $299 million). (newsweek.com)
- News coverage at the time explicitly described the Georgia runoffs as “the most expensive races in history” or record‑breaking Senate elections, confirming they set a new high-water mark. (newsweek.com)
- Earlier analyses during the campaign also noted that spending on the runoffs alone had already “smashed” records and made Georgia “Exhibit A” for runaway Senate spending. (thefulcrum.us)
Together, this confirms his claim that these would be “the biggest funding for a Senate runoff race in history, by far.”
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Total spending and ad‑spending scale (> $100 million)
- AdImpact’s post‑election analysis estimates that the two 2020 Georgia Senate runoffs saw a combined $507 million in advertising spending, with about $262 million in ads for Perdue–Ossoff and $245.6 million for Warnock–Loeffler. (adimpact.com)
- Other contemporaneous reporting put overall spending on the runoffs (candidates + outside groups) at well over $370 million, again emphasizing that these runoffs were unprecedentedly expensive. (thefulcrum.us)
- Friedberg’s specific ballpark for ads (“north of $100 million… maybe 100 to 200 million”) ended up being conservative—the actual ad spending was more than double his upper bound—but the core of his forecast was that spending would at least exceed $100 million and reach an extraordinary, record‑setting level. The realized figures clearly met and greatly surpassed that threshold.
Because the Georgia runoffs did, in fact, become by far the most expensive Senate runoffs in U.S. history and shattered the $100 million mark in total and advertising spending, Friedberg’s prediction is best classified as right, even though he underestimated just how extreme the final ad totals would be.