Back in 2024, we looked at which voters in the country were inundated with the most political ads. In Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District, 23 political entities were all spending on linear television. The average voter saw 409 ads in one month leading up to the election.
In the past few weeks, we've seen that this story is no different in 2026. Political ad spend is set to hit a record high; Californians have already been inundated with ads in the gubernatorial election, and the Supreme Court's ruling will increase linear frequency within the same budget.
Anyone who lives in or close to a competitive state or district knows the feeling of seeing too many political ads. But when we look at viewership and ad load, very few voters see the vast majority of ads.
How has viewership changed since 2024?
Back in Impressions to Ballots #3, we first looked at the time spent watching the TV screen that is ad-supported and available to political advertisers.
This month, we updated our political "gauge" and compared the trend to the same point in the 2024 cycle.
Cable gave up 9 points of the political pool in two years. Streaming took nearly all of it.
How has streaming changed since 2024?
YouTube alone accounts for 42% of politically available streaming, more than the next four platforms combined.
HBO Max is taking political ads for the first time this cycle. It's only 2% of the pool today, but it's the lone policy change on the board since 2024.
Netflix and Prime Video are still zeros. That's roughly 12 points of total TV time you cannot buy at any price. Ad-supported does not mean politically available.
What is ad load?
The proportion of time a user sees ads per hour of content.
Ad load is not uniform across broadcast, cable, and streaming, and political advertisers should spend more time thinking about it as it relates to frequency.
What is the estimated ad load by viewership medium?
Cable runs 15.5 minutes of ads per hour. YouTube and Netflix run 5. That's a 3x gap, and it has a dramatic effect on where ad impressions actually go.
How are ad impressions split by medium?
72% of politically available ad impressions still land on broadcast or cable; that’s down from 81% in 2024.
The percent-of-impressions view tells a very different story from overall viewership. Streaming accounts for 43% of the political audience's time and 28% of ad time.
Which voters see the most ads?
We have focused a lot on TV spend and frequency. There is good reason for that.
Voters who watch a heavy amount of TV spend the most time on the highest-ad-load medium. They see a vastly disproportionate number of ads overall.
What does this mean for political advertisers?
Manage frequency across the voter contact plan. Linear still generates 72% of available political ad impressions. Without intentional planning and cross-channel measurement, campaigns will overexpose heavy TV viewers while underreaching everyone else.
Don’t wait to buy premium streaming inventory. Streaming carries a lighter ad load, which means fewer opportunities to reach your audience. Reserve audience-targeted premium inventory early to secure supply and lock in impressions.
Reinforce your message on offline channels. The 2026 midterms will be crowded and noisy. Successful campaigns will consolidate data signals, break down channel silos, and coordinate TV, streaming, mail, phones, texts, and doors into a single voter contact strategy.