Election Day is now 4 weeks away.
Campaigns and outside groups have little time left to convince voters. More than a million people have already voted, and we expect early voting to increase each week through Election Day.
Campaigns spent over $1.6 billion in September on video ads across linear TV, streaming, and digital.
With that much advertising, campaigns are spending significant time and resources figuring out which messages will break through.
This week, we’ll look at the creative strategies both parties are using in key Senate states.
How did we do this analysis?
More than 2,000 ads ran across digital and TV in Senate states. Analyzing that many ads would have been nearly impossible in previous cycles.
We downloaded links to every ad AdImpact picked up and used Claude Code to analyze the transcripts.
We then grouped the ads into families: versions of the same message that might run at different lengths or across different channels. Throughout this newsletter, I’ll refer to those families as “creatives.”
We excluded fundraising ads, display ads, and any ad with less than $1,000 in estimated September spending.
How many creatives ran in September?
The analysis included 547 creatives:
251 ran on both TV and Digital
296 ran on Digital only
No creatives ran on TV only.
The 251 ads that ran on both TV and Digital make up 91% of total political ad spending.
Republicans: 142
Democrats: 109
Who is responsible for the ads?
In Impressions to Ballots 40, we discussed the Republican money advantage and the outside groups supporting it.
That shows up in who is behind the ads. Battleground-state voters are more likely to see Democratic ads from candidates and Republican ads from outside or coordinated groups.
What is the tone of these ads?
The creatives and transcripts show how the parties’ strategies differ.
Both parties have similar shares of positive, contrast, and negative ads. But Republicans are more likely to use fear, while Democrats are more likely to use aspirational messaging.
What issues appear in ads?
Both parties are trying to define their candidates. After that, their priorities look very different.
Democrats are much more likely to talk about healthcare, corruption, and money in politics.
Republicans are more likely to talk about taxes, spending, gender, and culture.
Immigration and the border, major topics in 2024, and abortion, a major topic in 2022, have almost disappeared from this year’s ads.
Which party mentions President Trump more?
Democrats.
Trump appears in 19% of Democratic ads, compared with just 3% of Republican ads.
What are the ads asking?
Most ads don’t include a direct ask. They are meant to “educate” the voter.
Expect explicit asks to vote to increase dramatically in October as the parties shift their focus to turning out supporters.
What does this mean for political advertisers?
Don’t switch messages too often. The number of creatives you run doesn’t matter if the message never breaks through. Find your message and make sure voters see it often enough to move the needle.
Ask for something. Don’t assume voters know when early voting starts. Use your ads to tell them and ask them to vote.
Use emotion. Voting is an emotional decision that affects people’s lives. Segment your audiences and use emotional appeals that resonate with each.