Inside Political Ad Spending for 2026 with John Link (AdImpact)

Host Eric Wilson sits down with John Link, Senior Vice President of Data at Ad Impact, to unpack the eye-popping numbers behind the 2025-2026 political cycle—projected to become the most expensive midterm in U.S. history at $10.8 billion. Link reveals that three to four Senate races alone could hit the unprecedented $500 million mark, with Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, and potentially Texas leading the way.

The conversation explores why House races are seeing the largest spending increases despite fewer competitive districts, how connected TV is capturing growing market share as the only expanding media category, and why early money is flooding the system faster than ever before. Link also discusses the real-world impact of mid-decade redistricting in states like California and Texas, the messaging challenges in saturated battleground markets, and why campaigns must navigate an increasingly fragmented media landscape that now includes streaming, digital, podcasting, and social platforms. For political professionals looking to understand where the industry is headed, this episode offers essential insights into the spending dynamics shaping the 2026 cycle.

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Transcript

John Link (00:00):

There are still some major TV platforms, Amazon, Netflix specifically, that don't accept political advertising. If those players decide to make a change in that policy, that would certainly reshape the industry.

Eric Wilson (00:17):

Welcome to the Campaign Trend Podcast, where you're joining in on a conversation with the entrepreneurs, experts, operatives who make professional politics happen. I'm your host, Eric Wilson. Today, we're digging into one of the most consequential data releases heading into the 2026 cycle. That's the Ad Impact 2025 to 2026 Political Projections Report, which lays out what's shaping up to be the most expensive midterm in US history. My guest is John Link, Senior Vice President of Data at Ad Impact. John has spent his entire career at the intersection of political advertising, price, and media markets. He brings a rare perspective, not just on the top line numbers, but on the underlying market dynamics behind them. In this episode, we're talking about what's driving the projected 10 plus billion dollars in political ad spending, why more money is entering the system earlier than ever, how connected TV is reshaping that media mix, and what all of this means for campaigns trying to compete in an increasingly expensive environment.

(01:23):

All right, John, let's get to the numbers here. Spending on the 2026 midterms is projected to increase $3.8 billion over 2022. When you break that down, where is the growth coming from? Is it from more genuinely competitive races? Is there more inventory to buy, or are we just seeing higher prices across the board like in every other sector of the economy?

John Link (01:48):

Yeah, Eric. It's a combination of sort of increases and maintenance of what we've seen in terms of prior levels that make up the overall projection. So the interesting trend here is that if you look at our projection, which you said is that increase, it's generally about $10.8 billion. And if you compare that to the presidential that we just came out of, which we finished at about 11.2 billions. So it's only this 400 million delta in terms of coming out of that presidential. And the presidential race sector accounted for over three billion of that spend. Wow. So you have that delta. So the question is really where does that come from? So if you look at the Senate side, that's our first look. The Senate's going to be really unique. So if you look at 22, there was about 2.3 billion, 24, there was about 2.7.

(02:38):

We expect that to see increase to about 2.8 billion for this year. Interestingly, we've only had two races in history, Senate history that have reached the 500 million spend mark. We're actually prognosticating three to four races to hit that mark. Three for now, we're pretty confident in Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia. And then we're a little bit bullish on Texas based on sort of how the primary shake out. If the results are favorable and we sort of have this highly competitive general, we could see that one hit that mark as well too. Then you have the House races. Now this is where we see the largest increase in spend. Now, there's some nuances here. Last two cycles, about 1.6 and 1.7 respectively in the House districts. We're actually expecting 2.2 billion this year. Now, interestingly, we're actually predicting less competitive races overall. We work with our friends at the Cook Report and they help us sort of navigate that ecosystem.

(03:40):

But the increase is going to come from the competitive races. The competitive races that are competitive are going to be highly active, highly competitive. Flat on the governor side, about two billion prior cycle. We'll look back to 22 on that. That's the apples to apples, the 36 total rates. So about two billion flat there. And then the final really is the down ballot races. And we're going to define those as state ledge, mayoral, local office type races. We actually started to break that out and look at those specifically this year because they are as much more of a priority on those races. The outcomes of those races certainly influence local government, at least more in a prioritized way than I think they have in the past. And with all of this activity, they fundraise better a little bit now. And with all of that fundraising gives that opportunity for advertising, we see more dollars from the down ballot races as well that we sort of previously have in past cycles.

Eric Wilson (04:42):

These numbers are just so huge, John. And if you look at ... The political ad spend in the US is the equivalent of a small national economy and every cycle it keeps going up and up. So is this just an arms race where both sides are spending more just to stay even? Or do you think that campaigns are finding some sort of advantage and they're pressing that? What is driving the increase cycle over cycle?

John Link (05:07):

Yeah. So the interesting part is when we talk about cycle over cycle, I want to be clear. We're looking at this from a true year perspective. So when we're talking midterm cycle, it is 25 and 26. So I always like to start with, well, how have we come out of these sort of odd number of years, these off cycles, and how has that election been into the real true midterm cycle? So if you start there, we're at 1.9 billion this year. We talk about the residential interaction, correct? Yeah, we've talked about the presidential interaction from last year. We finished 2023 at 1.4 billion. We're 500 million ahead of that presidential pace that we just came out of. Now, there are some anomalies in 25. We certainly know that Wisconsin Supreme Court. Prop 50 in California came in with a three digit spend overall. New York Mayor, New Jersey, Virginia were particularly expensive.

(06:02):

So we had some anomalies, but it does tell us that we're going to see this sort of robust increase in overall spending. We talked about the down ballots. I do think that those are real players now, especially in these midterm cycles. Almost a billion dollars are probably going to hit that a little bit under, maybe three quarters of a billion are going to hit that. So I do think that there are opportunities there. But honestly, people are really good fundraisers. I think there's just more understanding and more focus on national politics and those national politics really trickle down into all race levels. People are just more interested in politics. They give more money, fundraising dollars. Those fundraising dollars ultimately in some fashion will hit some type of marketing budget.

Eric Wilson (06:50):

Yeah. And one of the things, I mean, and you just pointed out, it jumped out to me too, which is how much early money is entering the system this cycle. And you mentioned some of the big, big races and the calendar doesn't even read 2026 as we're recording this and we're already looking at more than a billion dollars. Is that early spending a sign of real strategic learning like we figured something out in 2024 and we're spending early or is it simply that budgets are bigger, you had these big campaigns and people are fundraising so they can afford to start earlier? Explain the ... Because this is something that we've worked with you guys to track on our own is that there's even more earlier spending at the federal level against incumbents.

John Link (07:41):

Yeah. I don't know if it's specifically post 24 learning. This is more of what we see as sort of a continuing trend within the ecosystem. We've seen these sort of efforts over cycles, and you mentioned it earlier, right? 10 to 20% increase cycle over cycles. So I think the understanding of A, how to fundraise effectively and B, how to sort of utilize the dollars in the ecosystem more effectively. There is certainly a bigger focus on how these dollars are utilized. I'm a political broadcaster by trade. I come from that environment. I didn't realize how easy I had it when I was doing that. When I was selling, I was selling broadcast television against cable and radio and a little bit of satellite. Those were your options if you were a marketer. Now, when you talk about learnings and sort of adapting to the market, there's streaming pressure, there's digital pressure, there's podcasting pressure, there's social pressure.

(08:42):

So there's all of these other outlets in terms of ways that marketers can put together an effective plan. So as that evolves, you sort of talk about those strategic learnings. I think really that's the nuance of the business, how folks react to those nuances within those new media types, new opportunities to gain impressions and get eyeballs around your message.

Eric Wilson (09:05):

Yeah. And let's talk about connected TV. So you project that that's going to be at $2.5 billion for the two years, making it the fastest growing media category with nearly double the spending over 2022, which is, I'm glad people are learning the lesson that people watch streaming and we should follow the eyeballs there. Are we in danger of seeing a saturation point there, or do you think that's where growth and spending will continue?

John Link (09:33):

The former, we believe that's where growth and spending will continue. You are correct. In fact, if you look at sort of media type projections, CTV is the only media type we see increasing their overall market share. Everyone else is going to remain relatively flat or slightly depressed. Now, in an $11 billion environment, about 100 million plus is one SharePoint. So if we see CTV increase three to four overall market share points, we can all do the easy math on how much more money is going to go into that CTV space. Now the second half of your question you asked me about oversaturation. I'm a firm no on that. We're starting to see premium inventory really sort of segregate itself or migrate itself a bit into the streaming environment. I'll define premium inventory as live sports, first run, exclusive platform type shows, major studio content, things like that.

(10:33):

So with this sort of shift into the streaming environment, there's more of it. There's not that saturation point yet. And I will say this, there are still some major TV platforms, Amazon, Netflix specifically, that don't accept political advertising. If those players decide to make a change in that policy, that would certainly reshape the industry as well as sort of the inventory landscape as well too.

Eric Wilson (11:00):

Yeah. I didn't even think about that. There would be a huge gold rush at that point. You're listening to the Campaign Trend podcast. I'm speaking with John Link from Ad Impact about the spinning picture for the 2026 midterms. So John, how much of what we're seeing, especially in house spending, is being reshaped by some of this mid-decade redistricting? Are there newly competitive or newly uncertain districts that are pushing campaigns to spend more defensively? I know you said it was kind of a smaller group of House races. What impact are we seeing there?

John Link (11:36):

It's nuanced based on where and how the redistricting is happening. So let me level step quickly. So the majors that we all know about are California and Texas. There's a few others that were sort of in play, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, others, but we'll focus on California, Texas since they're really the predominant ones that have already made these adjustments. I will add that there are a handful of other states that are considering and at least building some type of advisory commissions to sort of explore the opportunities here. I think some of the major ones there are Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, a couple others. So there could be some changes moving forward. But the interesting part is, you asked me how it's sort of shaping the landscape. Texas is one thing, right? Think about Texas. You had Jasmine Crockett looser CTs now going to run for Senate.

(12:27):

So maybe there was a cause and reaction there. But overall in Texas, it really reduced the number of overall competitive races. The redistricting generally created these very strong partisan districts. So the answer is yes, it certainly I think reduced the competitiveness in Texas specifically. I would argue that California is a little bit different. Think about what the California redraw was. It was an aggressive Democratic effort to make several GOP held districts were them leading.

(13:02):

But you took away really strongholds and made them into more lean competitive opportunities. 21 and 41 houses really come into play. They're the really stronghold GOP seats in California. Those weren't really going to be competitive races, but because of the redistricting, you'll see increased competitiveness there. So it really depends on the state and really the environment around that redistricting effort.

Eric Wilson (13:29):

Yeah, that's fascinating. Another thing I want to touch on are these governors races. You sort of alluded to it's not as big of an increase as we saw in other places, but are they getting more expensive? What's going on there with the governor's races? Because I mean, those can be expensive statewide campaigns.

John Link (13:53):

Yep. So I know I mentioned earlier that it's generally flat in terms of what we see from an expectation standpoint, right around $2 billion. There's really just not going to be a ton of competitive gubernatorial races. I mentioned with the Cook, right? So if you look at the Cup ratings, there's three toss up gurutorial races, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin. Two of them were open, one's an incumbent. You have Kansas in there, which is a lean GOP, which should be pretty competitive as well too. But the interesting nuance, you asked about how expensive these races are going to be, especially the three tossups. They're all within battleground states that are going to see Senate races, governor races, heavily utilized house races, down ballot races, ballot props, those type of things. So what you're going to find, two things that are going to have to be managed by broadcasters, reasonably by marketers.

(14:50):

Number one is your messaging. If I'm in a state like Michigan that has a ton of different races that are going to influence or California, they're going to have a ton of different influences, I have to make sure that my message is at lost. I'll give you an example. I live in Pennsylvania, I live in district four in Pennsylvania. So I'm always in a battleground. So I turn on my TV and in one commercial pod, I could see a state ledge race, a presidential race, a governor race, and a New Jersey Senate race. Those are the things that I might see. And I'm in the business and I have to make those nuanced decisions about what am I listening to? Who's the candidate? What race is this for? It's difficult. So you have to manage the messaging. It's going to be difficult in those saturated states.

(15:35):

And two, you have to manage the inventory cost. It's going to be expensive. Cost per thousands are going to be high, average year rates are going to be high. So there's going to be this sort of supply and demand issue in those rates as well. It's just going to drive out the overall spends, whether it's soft money, party money, pack money, candidate money, it's all going to be inflated in those races.

Eric Wilson (15:57):

Yeah. And that's always so tough whenever you've got sort of federal campaigns running a national message and then that kind of forces you as the statewide candidate to talk about issues that may not be to your strengths or try and swim against the tide and really increase your spend there.

John Link (16:16):

Exactly. And I'll add sort of an addition here. There are lessons learned, right? We talked about New Jersey. These off cycle Kupernatorial races, they are lessons learned for the upcoming midterms. If you look at New Jersey specifically, Virginia to a lesser degree, the takeaways that I look at those are, number one, there's clearly a key trend, which I think is affordability. And I'll define that as cost of living, energy cost taxes. As I wake up in the morning and look at my checking account, those are the things people are going to be interested in, especially at a dubitorial level, the governor who can really influence those things. And then there's always this push when you talk about CTV and targeting and using different mediums to get there. Suburban voters specifically in gubernatorial races, they have to be mobilized. And the folks who can mobilize those sort of suburban voters the best tend to have the most positive outcomes.

Eric Wilson (17:13):

Yeah. And John, I want to branch off into something that has sort of been on my mind a lot lately since we did at the Center for Campaign Innovation, a post-election survey in Virginia and New Jersey and found that streaming is really where TV, if you want to call it that happens these days. And so your report, you're looking at spending, which I think is the best kind of apples to apples comparison where you're looking at broadcast, cable, satellite, and then add-on streaming. But there's another layer to this, which is you mentioned the promotional pods that the ad load is just smaller on streaming versus broadcast. And so I'm curious from your perspective, how does that change how we interpret the competitive or the real messaging weight, right? Because a dollar on streaming is not the same as a dollar on broadcast right now.

John Link (18:05):

Yeah, that's a very tricky question. So I'll start by saying, as a data company, I'm certainly not in the business of telling marketers how to advertise, but what we really can help with is telling you how your ads are being consumed. So I'll answer your question in that context a little bit. Ad loads are unique because I think they are nuanced based on the race type. So let's talk about federal races versus localized races. We recently did a case study and it was on a house district that was using linear television exclusively. And the effort was to sort of show the broadcaster, is there waste and how much, if there was waste, how much waste there was. And what we found there was about 90% of the impressions being served were outside the voting callies. So one would make an argument, "Well, that's 90% waste.

(18:57):

You should be using cable or CTV or digital to try to target within there and try to utilize your dollars better." That is an argument to be made. But the counter to that is, for instance, there's always going to be viewers on broadcast television that are either using digital antenna or an MVPD set top box that are only going to see your message on broadcast hours.

(19:19):

Every market has a penetration of that amount of ... And it's significant, 50, 60, 70% sometimes, right? So you have to make these decisions as a broadcaster. Yes, there might be waste here, but I need to absorb that waste to be able to hit these block of voters. I'll never reach them any other way. So it really is a balance. So when you talk about ad loads, I think there is a pricing balance. And I also think that there is a total viewership frequency balance as well.

Eric Wilson (19:47):

Yeah. And it is such a hard thing to kind of pick apart. And we've had guests on the show talk about this previously of like, if I go to my local, let's say CBS station and buy an ad there, it could bounce into other ... My DVR, so I'm showing up on YouTube TV and just all these other places that it can go that we can't isolate unless we have your data and your research of where people are seeing the ads.

John Link (20:21):

Exactly right. And I think that's really where companies like ours that provide data insights, and you see all of these planners and marketers and the broadcasters needing to get smarter in the way that they make their decisions, right? In terms of how they approach a marketing effort, how they approach a sales effort. You have to be sort of one step ahead. That's what I love about the political sort of environment is that I think people are willing to look at things differently and make change faster than maybe more of a traditional advertising

Eric Wilson (20:52):

Space. Well, we have to. I mean, this is the thing I always talk about. You came from sort of commercial world, consumer packaged goods, those kinds of things, and every two years politics would show up. We only have one day of sales, increasingly one month of sales and one sale to make per person. It's not like Coca-Cola where we can have a bad cycle or a bad quarter and then try again next quarter and get more people to buy Coke. So with that in mind, if you had to boil this report down to one or two takeaways for campaigners as we head into 2026, what's the biggest thing that we're still underestimating about spending and allocation and things like that?

John Link (21:37):

For me, it's just how the environment can continue to support more and more ad dollars. I'll give you a little bit of an unannounced news flash year. I think our 10-8 might ultimately be a little bit low. We will put out a version two early in 2026, maybe towards the end of first quarter. We'll do a V2, lessons learned, redistricting, things like that. But I think we might be a little low. So my major takeaway would be how the environment can continue to sort of support additional dollars. But when those additional dollars continue to get added, they need to go somewhere, right? And they need to go to an inventory unit somewhere. So as a middleman, really between sort of marketers and sellers, I love to see the interaction between it, right? Because think about it, every buyer wants more efficiency in their dollar, right?

(22:30):

They can do that by leveraging these additional opportunities and additional marketing pallets. Sellers want to maximize their inventory unit, right? And it's this delicate malice that sort of played out over and over again.

Eric Wilson (22:43):

Well, thanks to John Link for a great conversation. You can learn more about Ad Impact and their report in our show notes and be on the lookout for that update. And sounds like good news for some of our listeners that there are going to be more dollars flowing into the industry, we hope on our side, certainly, maybe on both sides. If this episode made you a little bit smarter or gave you something to think about, you know that all we ask is that you share it with a friend or colleague, you look smarter in the process and more people hear about the show. Remember to subscribe to the Campaign Trend Podcast wherever you get podcasts so you never miss an episode. And be sure and visit our website, campaigntrend.com for newsletters and articles. With that, I'll say thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.

(23:23):

The Campaign Trend Podcast is produced by Advocacy Content Kitchen, a media production studio.