2024 will see the highest political ad spend of all time: report

It seems there’s no escaping political ads, perhaps more so now than ever.

The 2023–2024 election cycle is forecast to bring in $10.2 billion in political ad spend, marking a 13% jump from the 2019–2020 election cycle’s spend of $9 billion, according to ad tracking company AdImpact. If that projection is correct, 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 like Ohio appear to be “a major driver of political spending this cycle.”

Breaking it down: AdImpact 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 downballot elections.

• In terms 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, per AdImpact. Battleground states like Pennsylvania and Michigan are also predicted to see high levels of spend.

Stream on: CTV is projected to make up around 13% of spend and “will continue to grow in future cycles,” per the forecast. As Marketing Brew wrote last year, media buyers reported seeing CTV spend “nearly quintuple” ahead of last year’s midterms compared to the 2020 election.