As Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton continue to battle over delegates, candidates running for down-ballot offices are facing the prospects of competing for voter attention with two mega-stars. In what are expected to be close primaries in Indiana and Oregon, candidates looking to advertise on television are going up against what could be million-dollar budgets for limited, and crucial, points.

In Indiana, former Rep. Jill Long Thompson and architect Jim Schellinger will share the ballot with Clinton and Obama in their race for the gubernatorial nomination on May 6. A recent poll have shown a close race between the two Democrats, but while both candidates are on television now, they could find themselves drowned out in a state where the two presidential candidates are each focusing major resources.

In Oregon, attorney and activist Steve Novick has been on television with humorous, quirky ads for several months (including one in which he opens a beer bottle with a hook), while House Speaker Jeff Merkley, the favorite of establishment Democrats, is just starting to go on television, as Swing State Project reports. Merkley and Novick will face off for the right to challenge incumbent Republican Senator Gordon Smith in Oregon's all-mail election, along with the presidential candidates, that ends May 20.

Not only do the presidential primaries increase the costs for down-ballot candidates running in other primaries, a contest with so much excitement introduces an additional element of uncertainty. Turnout around the country has been huge, and the four candidates, whose campaign teams are likely experienced in targeting normally small primary electorates, now have much bigger universes to target.

Of course, added turnout is great for state Democratic parties, which can use the new registrants and newly active voters to raise money, recruit volunteers and build organizations that will eventually benefit the winners of those primaries. "I actually think the primary coming to Indiana is helpful to my campaign for a lot of reasons because people are paying attention now more to the presidential and therefore to gubernatorial," Long Thompson told the NWI Times.

For Merkley and Long Thompson, who started advertising after their respective competitors, the added universe that is paying the most attention to the presidential contest could be hard to reach. But that's the case for Novick and Schellinger as well, neither of whom is particularly well-known in their states.