Last week, we looked at where the money stands in the 2026 election. Later that night, we got a reminder from the Michigan primaries that more money doesn't always win elections.
In one of the clearest examples of the ideological divide within the Democratic Party, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed narrowly defeated Rep. Haley Stevens to advance to the general election against Republican Mike Rogers for Michigan’s Senate seat.
El-Sayed represents the progressive wing of the party and was backed by the Democratic Socialists of America. Stevens was the establishment candidate, backed by Leader Schumer and multiple large outside groups.
El-Sayed won the nomination by approximately 16,000 votes. Yet, Team Stevens and the outside groups supporting her substantially outspent Team El-Sayed throughout the race.
With no contested Republican primary, roughly 20% of all registered voters cast a ballot in the Democratic primary.
Who had the money advantage?
Team Stevens.
When we combine the Stevens campaign with the outside groups supporting her, Team Stevens held a clear spending advantage.
Regardless of candidate quality, how was El-Sayed's message able to break through such a large spending disadvantage?
Who was more efficient on TV?
Team El-Sayed.
The CSM measurement platform categorizes every creative as positive or negative for a specific candidate. For the purpose of this case study:
Team Stevens: Positive Stevens and Negative El-Sayed messaging
Team El-Sayed: Positive El-Sayed and Negative Stevens
Team Stevens spent 7.1 times more but generated only 2.1 times more on-target impressions to Democrat primary voters.
Wow!! Team El-Sayed offset a significant portion of Team Stevens' spending advantage through a much more efficient television buy. El-Sayed also placed a much larger share of its television spending directly through the campaign itself.
This allowed the campaign to take advantage of the lowest unit rate and buy inventory at a cheaper price than Team Stevens, who was primarily supported by outside groups.
How many voters did each campaign reach on TV?
Buying more expensive impressions is defensible if it leads to greater targeted reach.
Team Stevens did deliver 10% more reach to primary voters with both positive messaging about her and negative messaging about El-Sayed.
However, that additional reach came with dramatically higher frequency. The average Democratic primary voter saw positive Stevens messaging 96 times and negative El-Sayed messaging 54 times.
Team Stevens also began advertising roughly six weeks before Team El-Sayed entered the television marketplace.
What role did digital play?
Unlike television, digital can target specific geographies and audiences, limiting the waste that comes with TV.
Team Stevens still maintained the spending advantage, but the gap was much smaller than on television. Team El-Sayed allocated a larger share of overall spending to digital, likely further narrowing the efficiency gap.
What does this mean for political advertisers?
Money isn’t everything. Campaigns with fewer resources can close the gap by being more efficient and disciplined with their messages.
Targeting matters. A very small number of voters decided the outcome of this Primary. Efficiently reaching those voters matters more than broad-based spend across the state.
Diminishing marginal rate of returns are really important. Team Stevens reached more voters, but at some point she added frequency much faster than reach. When this happens, change creative or move budget.