Winning at targeted ads is more of a skill game.

You typically only need a few thousand well placed votes to win an election, and even 100k impressions at $10 CPM is pretty inexpensive.

> You typically only need a few thousand well placed votes to win an election, and even 100k impressions at $10 CPM is pretty inexpensive.

In the context of the EU this isn't true though, no political system in any EU member state relies on a tiny minority of votes from some states/provinces to completely tip an election.

There are still some discontinuities in the electoral systems where smallish number of votes can have a massive impact.

For example the run off thresholds in French legislative elections. And some places like Italy still use FPTP in a hybrid form.

However you're correct that there's nothing quite like Pennsylvania in the EU.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_French_legislative_electi...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Italian_general_election#...

There is diminishing returns once you have enough money to spread your message. The problems arise when you don't have a way to spread it at all. It's not always a better funded who wins anyway. The last US election are the prime example: Democrats significantly outspent Trump and lost. I am sure every American have heard both sides as well: their message and their attacks on their opponent. I think more information is better for democracy in general. Removing political ads cuts in in favor of incumbents, who in EU often control other (than the Internet) media.