How expensive is it to win a US Senate race in NJ? I've heard that there are no TV stations in the state so all ads have to be bought in either the New York City or Philadelphia media markets.
Running a statewide campaign in this state is a nightmare. We have some local media (2 NJ 'statewide' tv stations, via cable, some local radio stations), but the NY (north, central portions of the state) and the Philly (southern, the 'other' central portions of the state) predominate. The NY media market is the most expensive in the country.
And, for such a small state, we have huge variations between regions. We also have a large amount of unaffiliated voters, who are notorious for making up their minds at the last minute.
Trying to remember from the '00 race. For some reason, I think Corzine spent somewhere along the lines of 36 mil for that seat. Now, Franks didn't lose that year by a huge margin, and he had a small fraction of that to spend. So if you're smart with your message and spending you can be effective.