Political Ad Spending Projected to Reach $11.6 Billion, Past Records

Political advertising spending in the United States is projected to reach $11.6 billion for the 2026 midterm elections, according to the advertising intelligence firm AdImpact. That total would exceed the $8.9 billion spent during the 2022 midterms and the $11.2 billion spent ahead of the 2024 presidential election. The elections take place Tuesday.

Outside groups have reported roughly $3.49 billion in independent expenditures by Oct. 27, according to an independent analysis of Federal Election Commission filings. That figure is about 79% higher than the amount reported at the same point during the 2022 midterm cycle. Billionaire Elon Musk has contributed more than $366 million to super PACs supporting Republican candidates. Federal Election Commission filings show a roughly $158 million payment from Musk last month to a Texas group backing Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton.

Researchers at Northeastern University say the link between ad spending and voter behavior remains difficult to measure. Katherine Haenschen, an associate professor in the departments of communication studies and political science, said current research suggests advertising increases turnout by about 1%. Haenschen said she has reached a point of saturation in political advertising. The cost of advertising on Texas television has become so high, she said, that some super PACs reportedly purchased slots during national football broadcasts because a nationwide placement cost less than targeting Texas alone. Haenschen attributed the pricing to spending in the Talarico-Paxton race.

Koen Pauwels, distinguished professor of marketing at Northeastern, said negative advertising often aims to discourage opponents' supporters rather than convert them. "A lot of the negative ads that a candidate may use to target audiences who prefer your opposing candidate is not to make them prefer you, because that's impossible, it's to stop them from making the effort to go to the voting booth," Pauwels said. "If you can just convince people not to make the effort to go out and vote for your opposing candidates, that's a benefit."

Haenschen said a large study of 146 political advertising experiments run through the platform Swayable during the 2018 and 2020 election cycles found measurable but generally small persuasive effects. She added that comparative research has found some ads perform better than others, but that historically "there's no clear pattern" to what makes an ad persuasive across different campaigns and election cycles. Haenschen said "effect sizes aren't particularly large" but that they are "large enough to matter when elections are going to be close."

The current spending environment stems from the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United v. FEC ruling, which allows super PACs to raise unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations and unions for independent spending. Super PACs cannot legally coordinate those expenditures with candidates' campaigns. In the 2024 presidential election, about $1.9 billion, or roughly 17% of overall ad spending, went to social media platforms such as Meta, Google, Snap and X, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. AdImpact reports roughly $1.6 billion has been spent on digital platforms so far this cycle.