$13 million spent on TV ads supporting the GOP candidate for PA attorney general. • Spotlight PA

HARRISBURG — The Republican nominee for attorney general and the well-funded political action committees backing him spent more than $13 million to flood Pennsylvania’s airwaves with TV ads on Election Day.

His Democratic opponent, meanwhile, has spent just $3.1 million on the same goal.

The race for attorney general is relatively unremarkable, but has major consequences. The attorney general defends Pennsylvania’s laws and election results, joins multi-state legal battles, and prosecutes everything from political corruption to gun and drug trafficking. The powerful and highly visible position has moved previous officials – such as the current government. Josh Shapiro – to higher office.

“This level of spending inequality can be very difficult to overcome, especially in a race that doesn’t get the same kind of earned media attention as, say, the presidential election,” said Anne Wakabayashi, a Democratic political consultant who is not. involved in the race for attorney general.

The Democratic candidate, Eugene DePasquale, served as Pennsylvania’s auditor general for eight years, giving him a statewide profile. The York County District Attorney’s Office is on Sunday.

Wakabayashi says she sees the spending on TV ads supporting Sunday as an attempt to boost his profile and brand him “a relative unknown.” DePasquale, she said, “has been in office for a long time, from the State House to the entire state office. He ran real campaigns.”

The $16.7 million total spend includes TV advertising scheduled to run between June 11 and November 5 and reported to the FCC. Total advertising spend, including digital promotions, is even higher.

Sunday has received significant support from a PAC funded in large part by Pennsylvania’s richest person, GOP megadonor Jeff Yass, and from a PAC tied to the Republican Attorneys General Association. Both spent millions of dollars on ads supporting Sunday and attacking DePasquale.

The Commonwealth Leaders Fund, the Yass-backed PAC, also gave Sunday’s campaign $800,000 directly. Sunday’s campaign generated just over $1 million in direct contributions in this reporting cycle – September 17 to October 21 – on top of the $1.2 million from the previous cycle.

But that amount is small compared to additional in-kind contributions from the Commonwealth Leaders Fund totaling just under $10 million. Contributions in kind are expenditures that are coordinated with the campaign.

Much of this in-kind spending contributed to the $13.6 million in pro-Sunday or anti-DePasquale TV ads. But $38,000 also went to production, $3.3 million to printing and postage, and $700,000 to digital advertising.

Other notable donors to Sunday’s campaign include the PAC for Comcast; Republican Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman of Indiana County; the Northeast Leadership Fund, that is chaired by a Luzerne County real estate developer; and a PAC for it skill game operators.

The Pasquale campaign is the only entity spending money on TV ads to support his candidacy. A spokesperson said the campaign is also aware of additional independent digital advertising, but not the amount being spent or who is funding it.

In financial reports filed last week, DePasquale reported raising nearly $1.8 million in the most recent reporting cycle, on top of nearly $2.2 million from the previous cycle, plus about $100,000 in in-kind contributions. Major donations included $650,000 from the Democratic Attorneys General Association and $100,000 from Shapiro. DePasquale also saw significant contributions from unions, including the Pennsylvania chapter of SEIU and the State Carpenters’ Union.

Few polls have been reporting on the race for attorney general, but they indicate a tight race.

Sunday has touted his history as a prosecutor and focused his campaign on public safetyin which he says he wants to tackle illegal gun ownership and the sale of fentanyl. He maintains that he has a holistic view of criminal justice, which includes providing certain offenders with education and other public services in lieu of prison sentences.

Ads funded on his behalf by the PAC Keystone Prosperity are more aggressively targeted undocumented immigrantsand have searched to link to Donald Trump on Sundayand say they will both stop the ‘anarchy’.

DePasquale has pledged to protect the right to abortion and has argued in advertisements that that will not happen on Sunday. He has done that in recent weeks accused Sunday of letting criminals off too easily during his tenure as York DA — an angle similar to the one in the pro-Sunday Keystone Prosperity ads.

He has also focused his campaign on prosecuting hate crimes, saying he would bring personal family experience with addiction and the criminal justice system to the attorney general’s office, as well as previous experience running a major state agency.

Spotlight PA’s Stephen Caruso and Kate Huangpu contributed reporting for this story.