The candidates have been coming to Atlanta for over a year to raise money and fire up supporters, but they’ve only been running ads on local TV stations for the past week or so.

“They come in late, because they don’t know if they’ll be around,” says Bobby Kahn. He's the former chairman of the Georgia Democratic Party and now works as a media consultant. He says Ted Cruz is the top spender among Republicans. Hillary Clinton has invested heavily in Super Tuesday ads in Georgia, while Bernie Sanders is focused on four other states. Viewers are also seeing spots from Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, and Rubio’s SuperPAC.

It’s expensive. A campaign could spend $21,000 for a single ad in prime time (that's how much Clinton dished out in last week's episode of Scandal on WSB, according to a disclosure filed with the FCC).

Kahn says candidates have to pick their targets, since 12 states vote tomorrow. And he says some voters outside the Atlanta area have been seeing ads for a while.

“Most of these candidates were on in South Carolina since December.”

Some of those spots ran on stations in Augusta and Savannah, since their signals reach into South Carolina.

Nationwide, Jeb Bush remains the top spender on TV ads. Ad Age reports he dropped more than $80 million on his failed quest for the GOP nomination.

Tags: Election 2016