Kantar Looks at the Midterms and Political Ad Spend for 2022

Massive Political Ad Spend

Ad spending for the 2022 Midterm election, especially on the local level is, “is one for the record books,” according to Steve Passwaiter, Vice President Growth and Strategy, Kantar. His presentation at the recent TVB Forward Conference demonstrated that TV continues to be the epicenter of political spending with over $4.5 billion committed to Local Broadcast TV alone so far this Midterm cycle. And it continues to grow as we get closer to Election Day. “We are over 50% in broadcast from 2018,” he noted. As a result, Kantar has continued to adjust its overall projections, now to $9 billion across all media.

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Activity is not just robust for the House and Senate races. Even gubernatorial races are factoring into greater ad spend. For local broadcast in particular, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Georgia, Phoenix lead the markets in political advertising this cycle.

Political Messaging

In terms of messaging, Passwaiter noted that Republicans are focusing on the economy as it is impacted by inflation and the cost of groceries while Democrats, also focusing on inflation, speak more towards the impact of corporations on consumer prices and the legislation that has been passed to protect the consumer. Democrats are also focusing voter attention on the impact of overturning of Roe vs Wade and the deterioration of reproductive rights protections which has become an especially strong talking point among female candidates.

Our ability to predict the results of the Midterms has been put to the test. The early general theory was that Republicans would win the House and it would be a toss-up for Republicans vs Democrats for the Senate. But even with just a few weeks before the election, any outcome is possible and the differential between national and local sentiment is stark. “It is a tale of two elections,” compounded by, “President Biden’s approval ratings,” Passwaiter explained. “Interestingly, for all of the distrust in the Federal government today, state and local governments are actually polling well,” he added.

Senate, House and Governor Races

There are 35 Senate seats up for election. Six of these races are already spending over $100 million and two more – North Carolina and New Hampshire – are expected to reach that lofty level of spending soon. Eight of these races, according to Passwaiter, appear to be battlegrounds, “and all of them are close, even Rubio in Florida which has taken a few folks by surprise.”

In terms of advertising contributions, six Senate races have already crossed into the nine figures, he noted, with both Mitch McConnell Republican and Check Schumer Democratic PACs as the biggest spenders. Some of the biggest races in this category are Senator Warnock in Georgia and Senator Kelly in Arizona.

There are 36 gubernatorial races across the country which is important because, “governorships tend to be good training grounds for the presidential candidates and there are at least three of them that are leaning in that direction,” Passwaiter shared, “Newsom in California, DeSantis in Florida and JB  Pritzker in Illinois.”

While the political terrain continues to shift and candidates jockey for position, the real winners of the Midterm election cycle might just be media companies with political ad spend continuing to reach new heights. Get ready to predict the Presidential race and subsequent ad spend in two years.

Photograph by Charlene Weisler

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