In addition to win-loss calculations in the US midterm elections next November, important numbers are emerging that indicate tough competition is expected.
Reports show that midterm advertising spending, which changes Congress in the middle of a presidential term, is higher than any previous midterm elections.
The advertising company has calculated that the amount of advertising spending for the 2022 midterm elections will reach almost $10 billion, which is unprecedented in the history of this race.
Candidates are spending huge sums of money on advertising in the hope of getting more votes through various traditional means or even through social media after the digital revolution.
Whether that candidate wins or loses, advertising agencies, the media, and various social networking sites will stand to gain from this billion-dollar American election race.
These elections are called midterms because they fall in the middle of the US presidential term, and this year American voters will vote for their candidates for 35 out of 100 Senate seats, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, and governors of 36 out of 50 US states.
Last April, advertising agency Magna suggested that the midterm elections would be one of the factors driving the increase in advertising in the US market as a whole during 2022, according to Forbes.
At the time, the advertising agency indicated that the total size of the advertising market would reach $320 billion by 2022, surpassing the $300 billion threshold for the first time.
AdImpact, an ad tracking and monitoring company, said that ad spending in the 2022 midterms on TV, radio and digital advertising has so far reached more than $6.4 billion.
The candid company has calculated that by November 8, when voters head to the polls, advertising spending will reach $9.7 billion. She called this figure “historic”.
With these figures, political advertising spending in the November elections is 56.6% higher than in the last midterm elections in 2018.
Bloomberg also cited the same figure and compared it to $9 billion in ad spending during the last US presidential election in 2020.
At a time when the US agency stated that “money spent on midterm elections rarely exceeds money spent on presidential elections”, CNN described the figure as “amazing”, saying that it not only exceeds previous midterm elections, but even presidential elections too.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the increase in campaign spending by US governors and states is due to the fact that the advertising market as a whole shows signs of slowing down amid signs that rising inflation is beginning to reduce consumer spending.
AdImpact reports that these campaign numbers for candidates in the 2022 midterm elections are double those already spent in the last election in 2018, highlighting the political significance of this year’s race on Capitol Hill.
The US economics broadcaster CNBC said the current midterm elections are “on track to be the most expensive ever.”
TV dominance
In just 30 days in August and September, candidates spent nearly $50 million advertising the current midterm elections through Facebook and Google alone, according to CNBC.
AdImpact has predicted that the Senate race between Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker, the former football star backed by former President Donald Trump, will be the most expensive in the nation in terms of $276 million in ad spend.
According to AdImpact, Connected TV (CTV) accounts for about 13 percent of all political spending, and the company estimates total spending on such platforms will rise to $1.4 billion by November, according to AdImpact.
Connected TV is a digital TV service like Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV that connects to a TV screen where users can opt out of traditional cable and satellite channels.
Even with the rise of digital advertising, traditional TV shows are still the dominant platform for political advertising. According to the Wesleyan Media Project, an unbiased group that monitors television political advertising, more than two million commercials worth nearly $1 billion aired on television in the United States alone between January 2021 and August this year.
The project said that the volume of advertising this time increased by 25.5 percent compared to the same period of the 2018 election cycle.
california top
AdImpact expects nearly $4.3 billion to be spent on House and Senate nominations, with $2.4 billion going to governors’ campaigns.
Another $3 billion is expected to be spent on advertising in other polls, according to the Wall Street Journal. In state racing, AdImpact predicts cost increases of 40 percent over 2020 and 60 percent over 2018.
The American company notes that California is the state with the highest advertising spending expected to be associated with this year’s midterm elections, followed by Pennsylvania, Illinois and Arizona, where there is a heated battle between the two parties.
Advertising spending in the California midterms alone is expected to reach $755 million, according to Reuters citing AdImpact.
Earlier in September, US President Joe Biden called on Congress to pass a bill that would require major political action committees and certain other groups to disclose which donors contributed $10,000 or more during the election cycle.
“There is a lot of money flowing in the shadows to influence our elections,” Biden said at the White House, noting that human rights groups can run ads to support or attack a candidate “before Election Day” without disclosing who paid for them. Reuters.
The money spent on political advertising comes from a variety of sources, including a group (PAC) called the political action committee, made up of leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties, which collects campaign contributions from members and donates those funds to campaigns for or against candidates. , electoral initiatives or legislation.
Reuters reported last month that PAC Group has invested more than $105 million in political ads since Aug. 20.
This year’s ads cover a range of different topics, including immigration, health care costs, abortion inflation, social security, and hiring more tax collectors.