Political Ad Spending For Midterms May Shatter Records: Here Are Some Winners And Losers

The 2022 midterm elections are setting up to be the highest-spending political advertising cycle of all time. AdImpact forecasts that upwards of $9.7 billion will be spent on political advertising, revised from $8.9 billion projected in July 2021.

This is good news for social media firms and traditional media outlets, who will benefit from the number of visitors looking for the latest news and generating advertising revenues.

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What Happened: During the 2020 presidential election, political advertising reached an all-time high, with $9.02 billion of spending.

Meanwhile, the November midterm elections are in focus for many voters, with inflation, economic headwinds, and abortion being key factors that will sway votes. Although not a presidential election, the election cycle is already outpacing 2020 by nearly $700 million at the end of July 2022, according to AdImpact. 

CNBC’s ‘The News With Shepard Smith’ reports that more than 59,000 political ads are hitting airways each day across TV, radio, and digital. Democrats are focusing on abortion ads, while Republican ads are centered on taxes and inflation.

Why It Matters: In the 2020 presidential election, 19% or $1.73 billion of electoral spending went towards digital advertising, to firms such as Alphabet GOOGL and Meta Platforms META.

With more people cutting the cord, connected television (CTV) advertising has seen $300 million, or 13% of the political advertising revenues, go towards streaming services already in 2022.

This figure is expected to hit at least $1.4 billion spent on CTV advertising for 2022, which could help out streaming giants such as Netflix NFLX and Walt Disney DIS, as they now have ad-supported subscriptions.

Lastly, traditional cable outlets such as Warner Bros Discovery Inc WBD subsidiary CNN and Fox FOXA saw a dip in earnings in 2020, but this could be revitalized in 2022 as midterm ad revenue is heating up.

The Last Word: Between Aug. 1, 2018 and Aug. 1, 2022, political advertising has increased by over 203%, which is attributed to the influx of ads during the midterm election cycle. With the inflow of money, media companies across the board could see their revenues propped up by political advertising dollars.

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