The political season is in full swing, and just ahead of the first debate between President Biden and former President Trump, AdImpact says it has tracked $68 million in radio ad spending across all 2024 races to date. The political ad tracking firm says radio’s share is 2%, a still small number reflecting campaigns’ typical strategy of moving more dollars to radio closer to Election Day when Americans start voting.
AdImpact says it has tracked about $3.4 billion in spending so far. That is up from $500 million from the start of the month. It is also well ahead of the roughly $2.5 billion that it had tracked at this point in the 2020 campaign.
The biggest share of advertising dollars has gone to broadcast television, which AdImpact calculates has pocked a majority 55% of the total spent so far. It is followed by 17% on cable TV, 13% on digital, 12% on connected TV, and 1% on satellite TV. As more campaigns race to put ads on CTV, one still unknown factor is where those funds will come from in 2024 — including whether they will be new dollars as fundraising and spending records are surpassed.
AdImpact says the Presidential race has had the most spending, totaling $793 million to date. In the past, radio has had a bigger bite of the ad budgets on more local and statewide races. The data suggests that radio stations in key states could be instore for a lot more spending in the months to come.
The Ohio Senate race has had the second biggest ad spending total at $287 million, followed by Senate races in Montana ($186 million) and Pennsylvania ($126 million), according to AdImpact numbers.
Gubernatorial races are also frequently beneficial for radio and that likely means good things for stations in Indiana, where the biggest governor’s race is this year. AdImpact says $46 million has already been spent on political ads in the race.
The data also shows some interesting differences depending on the language of the commercial. AdImpact says the market with the largest percentage of Spanish language ads is Yuma, AZ, where a third (34%) of political ads have been in Spanish. It is followed by Laredo, TX (25%), Miami (24%), Fresno, CA (11%), and Las Vegas (11%). The majority of Spanish-language ads is in the Presidential race. And the U.S. Senate race with the largest number of Spanish-language ads is the Nevada Senate. The largest House race is California’s 13th congressional district, which stretches from San Jose to Fresno.
Billion Dollars In Fall Bookings
Looking ahead, AdImpact’s latest update says Ohio, Montana and Pennsylvania are where the most ad reservations for the fall have been placed — with Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin also seeing tens of millions of dollars in ad reservations with the balance of power in the U.S. Senate driving much of the action so far. The Biden and Trump campaigns are also indicating they are both planning to spend considerable dollars in Pennsylvania.
Overall, AdImpact says more than a billion dollars of political ad spending has already been reserved to air this fall. The Democrats currently have an advantage, with $714 million of ad time booked, with Republicans having reserved $361 million to date.
AdImpact says its AdMo ad monitoring data shows that the overall tone across all 2024 races so far is not as dark as one might expect. It says 61% of ads have been positive, while 25% were negative, and 14% were contrast ads between two candidates. Its data shows that in the Presidential race, about $26 million has been spent on ads negatively targeting Trump, while about $19 million has been spent on ads negatively targeting Biden.
AdImpact projects a record $10.2 billion will be spent during the 2023-2024 election cycle across all media, including radio. The forecast, if accurate, would mean political ad spending will grow 13% from the record $9.02 billion that flowed during the last presidential election cycle four years ago.
AdImpact forecasts radio will pocket $116 million from House and Senate contests, with another $84 million coming from the presidential race.
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