Campaigns spend big to sway voters with increasingly personal attack ads

Oct 26, 2026 6:30 PM EDT

Campaigns and their allies are making their closing arguments, and they’ve spent more than the annual budgets of a handful of states doing it. Much of that money is aimed at voters’ wallets, but the attacks are also getting more personal and more artificial. Lisa Desjardins explains.

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Lisa Desjardins Lisa Desjardins

Lisa Desjardins is a correspondent for PBS News Hour, where she covers news from the U.S. Capitol while also traveling across the country to report on how decisions in Washington affect people where they live and work.

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@LisaDNews