And The Money Continues To Flow
The amount of money spent on radio during the midterm election cycle has jumped 22% in the past month, with the vast majority of ad dollars expected to come following Labor Day, the traditional start of the fall election season. Inside Radio reports that the ad-tracking firm AdImpact says $124 million has been spent on political ads on the radio so far. That is up from $101 million a month ago.
And based on past history, there’s much more to come. AdImpact data for both the 2022 and 2024 election cycles show spending rose sharply from August through September and then roughly doubled again in October prior to the early November election.
The increase is part of a broader flood of political money. AdImpact says roughly $6.1 billion has now been spent across broadcast television, cable, radio, digital, satellite and connected TV in 2026 races. That is up from $4.79 billion as of mid-July 16, an increase of roughly 27% in little more than a month.
You probably didn’t need that data, because your own experience told you that; the number of political ads, back-to-back-to-back in many cases, during local TV news is rapidly accelerating.
Broadcast television remains by far the biggest beneficiary, with $3.12 billion of the $6.1 billion spent so far, just more than half. Again, traditional AM/FM radio’s is at $124 million nationally, more than double the number on satellite radio outlets.
Outside groups are driving much of the spending. Issue groups account for $4.09 billion, more than twice the $1.98 billion spent by candidates themselves. Coordinated buys account for another $86 million. That figure is expected to be a larger part of media strategies in the coming weeks after the Supreme Court ruled in June that groups could coordinate with campaigns—that had been prohibited.
A reminder that we are now at $6.1 billion…and AdImpact projects an all-time record of $11.6 billion to be spent by election day. That means we’re only about halfway there…so brace yourselves.
