By: Peyton Kifer, Yini Zheng (Guest Contributors)
Nick, a 28-year-old software engineer, had already gotten three political text messages by the time he dropped off his ballot in Colorado Springs on election day. For the past week, he said, it had been five to 10 a day.
“That fiftieth message you sent me really sent me over the edge,” he said rhetorically about the campaigns and those sending messages on their behalf.
Nick isn’t the only one upset by a tsunami of political mail and communication leading up to the Midterm elections.
Several voters interviewed on Tuesday at a ballot drop-off site off North Union Blvd. agreed that one thing stood out about this campaign season: how much information flooded their phones, TVs, mailboxes and doorsteps.
Mack Bekeza, a 32-year-old financial planner, said he got two or three campaign flyers every day.
“It’s the same thing,” he said. “I get two Jeff Crank things, I get two Jessica Killin things.”
Jaymie, 40, who works in social media, said her phone blocks spam texts, but the mail and TV ads were harder to avoid. When she watches football, she said, “one commercial will be one candidate and the next one is the opposite. I feel like that’s such a waste.”
The problem goes beyond Colorado Springs.
In a September survey of about 1,000 U.S. adults by NumberBarn, a phone number company, people said they got about 13 political calls and texts a week. Seventy-nine percent said they did not trust the information in those messages.
Voters across the country have seen more political ads than ever.
Campaigns and outside groups spent or reserved a record $11.21 billion on political ads in the 2026 midterms, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. That’s more than $2.3 billion above the 2022 midterms. In 2022, Americans also received about 15 billion political text messages, according to the call-blocking company RoboKiller, as reported by NBC News.
In conversations with voters in recent weeks, one clear trend emerged: Much of what voters saw was negative.
In September, both congressional campaigns in Colorado’s too-close-to-call 5th District called the other side’s ads “lies,” the Denver Gazette reported.
Killin’s ads said Crank sought an ethics waiver to accept gifts from lobbyists. Crank’s campaign said the waiver was related to his daughter’s wedding and that no lobbyists gave gifts. An ad from No Going Back PAC, a super PAC linked to President Donald Trump, called Killin a “wealthy liberal lobbyist.” Killin called the ad “complete BS.”
That was merely a glimpse of the heavy mudslinging in that particular race.
Did it work?
“Nothing changed my mind,” said a woman named Linda who had just dropped off her ballot into a box on Tuesday.
Other voters echoed a sentiment that they are just sick of it.
Linda, a self-described “older than shit” retired nurse who only provided her first name, said she used her stack of mailers to keep track of the different questions and measures as she filled out her ballot.
For Leah Johnson, 23, who works in healthcare, the state’s official voter guide, known as the Blue Book, was more helpful than any ad. She said Minnesota, where she moved from two months ago, doesn’t send one. She wished campaigns spent less time attacking each other.
“If you make an ad,” she said, “do it for what you’re for, not what your opponent is for and how that makes them a bad person.”
Now that the midterms are over, let’s hope politicians and their campaign’s take note: No more spam.
Disclosure: Peyton Kifer is president of the CC College Democrats.