Battleground state, swing state or showdown state. No matter what you call it, Wisconsin residents are seeing the importance of their 10 electoral votes.

Both President Bush and his challenger, Sen. John Kerry, have spent time in the state recently, and when the candidates haven’t been here physically, Wisconsinites have felt their constant presence on TV screens.

Freshman Korissa Dyle said that although she doesn’t watch much television, she has noticed the number of political advertisements increasing.

In an Oct. 12 report by Nielsen Monitor-Plus and The University of Wisconsin Advertising Project, it was cited that 27 percent of the U.S. population has seen 87 percent of political advertisements, a discovery project assistant Joel Rivlin of UW-Madison said he found fascinating.

“If you live in California, Texas and New York, you’re simply not seeing political advertisements,” he said. “Where, if you live in La Crosse, you can’t get away from them.”

The project collects data from all 210 media markets in the United States and tracks every political advertisement in each market. Undergraduate students at Madison then analyze the ads using eight criteria, including who paid for the ad and what issues it focuses on.

The La Crosse-Eau Claire market ranked No. 16 in the nation for the number of presidential spots aired Nov. 24 through Oct. 7. The market currently is the 127th largest in the nation. Additionally, of the top 50 presidential spot markets, five were in Wisconsin.

Geoff Peterson, associate professor of political science, said there is mixed research as to whether political ads can have an effect on how viewers vote.

“Some research shows that advertising drives down voter turnout, especially negative advertising,” Peterson said. “Most research it shows it has somewhat of an impact.”

He said research shows the fewer times a particular advertisement is shown, the greater the impact of the ad.

“You reach such a saturation point,” Peterson said. “My guess is, at this point, I think the Chippewa Valley is pretty saturated.”

Dyle said she thinks positive ads are more effective than negative ones when appealing to young voters. She said her favorite political ad was on MTV.

“It wasn’t about one side or the other,” Dyle said. “It wasn’t by a political party, but it was part of (MTV’s voter registration drive) Choose or Loose.”

Junior Eric Katzung said he thinks negative advertisements have an important role in the campaign season.

“Negative ads I think, do work; otherwise, they would not be consistently using them,” he said. “They’re a way for candidates to highlight what is normally not discussed.”

Political campaigns spend a large amount on ad buys, Peterson said, because if they don’t advertise, it appears the candidate has given up.

According to the Campaign Media Analysis Group, from Oct. 17 to Oct. 23, the Bush/Cheney campaign spent $628,034 in Wisconsin.

The Kerry/Edwards campaign surpassed its competition.

It spent $859,734 in the state during the same time period Bush’s campaign ran ads.

Katzung said while TV ads are helpful for students who have not decided who to vote for, people should not rely on ads for all their information.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to base your decision on an ad,” he said. “It’s a way to appeal to people to research more on their own.”