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WASHINGTON - In late summer when most people expect a break from presidential campaign ads, both sides in this year's White House race are blitzing the airwaves with more than $60 million worth of commercials.

Political campaigns traditionally spend less on advertising in August, when voters are thinking more about vacations and less about politics.

But with the race between President Bush and John Kerry still tight, both sides are running wall-to-wall TV commercials in nearly two dozen competitive states and on national cable networks.

"The race is so close and it will be decided by so few voters in so few states that neither side can afford to go down," said Ken Goldstein, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who studies campaign ads.

Bush is spending at least $30 million on TV and radio ads this month. Kerry is not advertising until September to save money, but the Democratic National Committee is spending more than $20 million on TV ads and other liberal groups have committed more than $11 million. Conservative groups also are on the air but to a much lower extent.

The figure for August is expected to rise. And that's despite low viewership in August. An estimated 92.8 million people on average watch TV on Sunday nights in August, compared with 110.7 million on comparable October evenings, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Bush is advertising on cable networks during the Olympic Games even though prices are anywhere from 25 percent to almost double the cost of ads during regular programming.

By Labor Day, the candidates, the parties and outside groups will have spent more than $280 million on an almost constant stream of commercials since ads for the general election began in March, months earlier than previous elections.

Through August, Bush will have spent more than $120 million on advertising, and Kerry about $80 million.

Steve McMahon, a Democratic media consultant, described "an escalating arms race" in which both sides are trying to gain an advantage, through advertising, in a tight White House race.

Bush and Kerry each has raised more than $200 million, breaking records from the 2000 campaign.

A once-obscure type of interest group that proliferated this year also is contributing to the increased ad spending, though mostly on the Democratic side. Dubbed "527s" because of the section of the tax code that covers them, the groups sprang up after new campaign finance laws banned the political parties from collecting unlimited donations of "soft money." Of these groups, the Media Fund, founded by former Clinton aide Harold Ickes, has spent the most at least $35 million through August.

The advertising content is also different this year.

Incumbent presidents who seek re-election usually stick with commercials that tout their accomplishments, while the challenger attacks. But the tables were turned this year.

Bush spent most of the last five months running mostly negative commercials about Kerry, while the Democrat's ads focused mainly on himself and ignored Bush.