As the build-up of next year’s United States of America’s political race intensifies, a report coming from AdImpact, a leading ad intelligence SaaS company, has estimated that the 2023–2024 election cycle will yield about $10.2 billion in political ad spend, marking a 13% jump from the 2019–2020 election cycle’s spend of $9 billion.
If this happens, it added, it would be the most expensive election cycle ever recorded, per the analysis, which looked at TV, radio, digital, and CTV spend.
AdImpact pointed to a few reasons for the expected record growth, including a “highly contested presidential election” and “razor-thin margins in Congress.” It also noted that abortion-related ballot initiatives in states such as Ohio, to be “a major driver of political spending this cycle.”
In its data analysis, the ad tracking company, estimates that $2.7 billion will go toward the presidential election, $2.1 billion to Senate races, $1.7 billion to House races, $361 million to gubernatorial races, and $3.3 billion to other down-ballot elections.
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Giving a break-down of the various plethora of channels, AdImpact projects $5.1 billion will go toward broadcast, $1.9 billion to cable, $1.3 billion on CTV, $1.2 billion on digital, $361 million on radio, $210 million on network cable, and $100 million on satellite.
AdImpact also looked at political ad spend by state, finding that California will likely see the highest spend at $1.19 billion. The figure can be attributed to the “highest number of competitive House races,” a Democratic Senate primary that currently has three “well-funded” candidates, and the fact that it’s a state that traditionally has seen high spend on ballot propositions.
The intelligence platform noted that battleground states like Pennsylvania and Michigan are also predicted to see high levels of spend. Taking a look at streaming, it added that, CTV is projected to make up around 13% of spend and “will continue to grow in future cycles.”
The report confirmed that media buyers reported seeing CTV spend “nearly quintuple” ahead of last year’s mid-terms compared to the 2020 election.
