That is an astonishing sum that would not only surpass all previous midterm cycles, but presidential cycles too. According to AdImpact’s data, ad spending reached a record $9 billion during the 2020 elections, when the Donald Trump-Joe Biden presidential race was at the top of the ticket, and $4 billion during the 2018 elections, when Democrats took control of the House.
Presidential election cycles are almost always more expensive than midterms. But there are a few factors that make 2022 different.
First, both majorities in the Senate and the House are up for grabs. The last time both chambers of Congress flipped party control in the same year was 2006, during a wave election for Democrats. In the most recent midterm elections during a president’s first term in office, 2010 and 2018, only the House was really in play.
Plus, after Trump attempted to pressure state and local officials to overturn the 2020 election results, the stakes are higher for the 36 gubernatorial elections on the ballot this year — especially for those in key battleground states including Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Those efforts have also caused donors and voters to pay more attention to races that typically have a lower profile, like for secretary of state.
And, as AdImpact notes in its report, there are some underlying elements that have helped supercharge the landscape: “An increasingly polarized electorate and easily accessible online fundraising tools have been major factors propelling this surge in spending. It no longer takes a presidential ticket at the top of the ballot to push a cycle near the $10 billion threshold.”
In fact, the Georgia Senate race — where Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker are facing off this November — has already seen more than $200 million in ad spending.
The Point: Both parties are now able to pull from a seemingly unlimited pit of money. That means elections across the board are only going to keep getting more and more expensive.
