The airwaves are flooded with political ads, but many of them aren’t from the candidates or their campaigns.

Campaigns tend to have political ads that celebrate their candidates or perhaps attack an opponent. But those ads are nothing like a PAC attack, which often goes for the jugular — attacking candidates for not showing up to public meetings or having a fake family.

Democratic strategist Ben Tribbett says it’s important to remember the firewall between the candidates and the PACs that love them.

“One part of the organization works directly with the candidates, and the other part works for those kinds of independent expenses,” says Tribbett. “And their ads are always kind of the creative side of what a candidate would like to say but doesn’t want to put their own name on.”

Jeff Ryer is a spokesman for the Trump campaign in Virginia and says PACs play the game by a different set of rules.

“The challenge for PACs is that they have to get the most bang for their buck, and the reason is that while candidates are allowed heavily discounted ads, PACs pay retail,” Ryer explains. “And that usually means they have to raise more and spend more, even if they end up with less.”

The clear winner in all the TV ad wars? Television stations. All the attack ads mean huge profits, especially for the Hampton Roads media market and the Washington DC media market, which includes Northern Virginia.

This report, provided by Virginia Public Radiowas possible with the support of Virginia Education Association.