The 2025/2026 election cycle is now projected to be the largest in history.
Not the largest midterm, the largest cycle period.
AdImpact recently increased its forecast from $10.8B to $11.6B, putting the cycle ahead of the 2024 Presidential cycle.
The estimate aligns with our Battleground Impact voter contact projection, which forecasts $11.2B in video advertising and another $2.7B across other voter contact methods.
There is more noise than ever in competitive states and districts. Voters are being inundated with ads. Winning campaigns will devise strategies to break through the noise to reach their vote goal.
Where are we now?
Political advertisers have spent $4B as of June 1.
That's 46% ahead of where spending stood at the same point in the 2024 cycle.
What are the top races by spend?
The top 10 races so far in 2025/2026 account for $1.25B or 31% of the total.
The top two are both in California. Not exactly a swing state.
How has political spend grown?
In 2017/2018, Cross Screen Media’s first cycle, the entire video market was $3.9B. In June, we’ve already eclipsed this amount, with the majority of spend coming in later primaries and in the lead-up to November.
Where is the money going?
Senate and gubernatorial races account for $5.8B.
Senate: $3.4B
Gubernatorial: $2.4B
That’s half of the new AdImpact projection. The rest consists of the US House, ballot initiatives, and downballot races.
Political spending is not being driven solely by Presidential elections and traditional battleground states.
Why does non-statewide growth matter for voter contact strategy?
There are 18 toss-up races in the US House in 2026. With such a close margin in the House, whichever party performs in these 18 districts will likely control the House.
AdImpact projects that $738M of the $2B (37%) spent on House races will go to these 18 districts. That’s more than the total spent on digital video in the 2018 cycle.
But not everyone in these districts can or will vote, and even fewer are actually persuadable.
Breaking down the $738M by voters, campaigns will spend $681 per persuadable voter.
This is why we’re so focused on holistic voter contact strategies. Campaigns have to break through the noise, and just serving an insane frequency of TV and digital ads won’t cut it.
Winning campaigns will meet voters where they are offline and online. They will plan all aspects of the campaign strategy in one place, off of one data set.
What does this mean for political advertisers?
More Spend. More Noise. Even without a Presidential, this will be a record-breaking cycle, meaning everyone is competing for a limited amount of voter attention.
Down Ballots Require Attention. With increased spending in down-ballot races, it's imperative for advertisers to plan accordingly. You can't reuse the same playbook from other campaigns.
Plan Holistically. There is more money in this market than ever before, but that can muddy the waters when it comes to knowing what is effective. It's on campaigns to demand unified measurement across all voter contact methods.