2022 Political Advertising Estimated To Hit Record $9.7B, CTV At $1.4B

• by Wayne Friedman , 3 hours ago

Political advertising for the 2022 mid-term election cycle is now trending to hit a massive $9.67 billion -- the highest total ever for any political ad cycle, exceeding any Presidential election year, according to AdImpact.

For 2022, this would be 7% higher than the 2020 Presidential election year ($9.02 billion), and two-and-a-half times higher than the 2018 midterms ($3.96 billion), according to AdImpact.

Through July, the election cycle is outpacing the 2020 election cycle by $700 million, the TV advertising intelligence and data research firm says.

A previous July 2021 estimate by AdImpact projected that 2022 political advertising would land at $8.9 billion. The 2016 Presidential election year came in at $2.57 billion in political ad spend.

“Although 2022 is not a Presidential year, there are still many high-profile and competitive races fueling the historic levels of political ad spending that will carry through to November,” says the company.

This includes 38 Gubernatorial races for the 2021-2022 political election cycle, which AdImpact says is a significant increase from the last election cycle. Thirty-five Senate elections will be held in 2022.

Much of the spend will continue to be on broadcast TV. Kantar recently estimated local TV alone could hit $5.5 billion in 2022. But AdImpact says media alternatives are growing -- including connected TV, which it says is on pace to reach $1.4 billion this year.

AdImpact does real-time monitoring of linear television, local cable, and CTV at markets, zip code, and household levels, collecting more than 21 billion TV ad impressions daily, from more than 60,000 brands and advertisers. This includes all national broadcast networks, 1,100 local broadcasters.