The party conventions are over, and the head-to-head battle in the Presidential election is now underway. AdImpact projects $2.16 billion will be spent during the general election portion of the race on broadcast ads. The ad tracking firm says former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are well on their way to hitting that target.
It reports $778 million has been spent on Presidential ads since Super Tuesday as of Monday (Aug. 26). It has also tracked $428 million in future Presidential ad reservations.
It has been a White House race like no other in recent memory, with President Biden dropping out July 21. Between Super Tuesday in March and Biden’s exit, AdImpact says it tracked $336 million in broadcast ad spending, of which $254 million was spent by the Democrats.
But the change at the top of the ticket has not changed the overall advertising dynamics. Since Vice President Harris has taken over as her party’s nominee, AdImpact says Democrats have continued to outspend Republicans by greater than a two-to-one margin. As of Monday, that gap was $296 million to $132 million.
The largest share of Presidential ad dollars are going into the tossup states where either Trump or Harris could win. AdImpact’s latest tally says those seven battleground states have had $589 million worth of broadcast ads since March. And the Omaha market, home to Nebraska’s split electoral vote, saw $4.5 million for its single electoral vote that could become a tiebreaker.
But it is Pennsylvania that is the winner for now. Democrats have poured $99.4 million into the state in support of Harris, while Republicans have invested $89.4 million backing Trump. Most other states are not quite as close, however. In second-place Michigan, Harris’ ad support totals $73.5 million vs. $31.5 million for Trump.
“Democrats outspent Republicans in four out of the five weeks since Biden dropped out of the Presidential race,” the report says. “Since then, the week of August 11th saw the most Presidential ad activity with Democrats spending $59 million and Republicans spending $51 million.”
Looking ahead, AdImpact says the week of Oct. 27 is on track to see the biggest crush of ads. It has tabulated $62.9 million of ad reservations for that week. The weeks of Oct. 20 and Oct. 13 are also significantly higher than what it sees in other post-Labor Day weeks, when Democrats have $27.6 million booked per week vs. $10.1 million from Republicans. The vast majority of that is on television, and that could send some advertisers heading to radio to get their messages out to consumers.
The report also finds shifting messaging among the candidates. It says prior to Biden dropping out of the race, Democratic ads focused on the character of each candidate, healthcare and abortion. But since Harris became the nominee, Democrats have focused more on crime, the economy and housing in their ads. The change in opponent also meant that Republicans focused less on inflation and increased their focus on immigration and crime.
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