Kantar Revises Estimated Ad Dollars Of Mid-Term Elections To $8.4 Billion

In this hyper competitive political climate, the 2022 midterm elections are shaping up to be the most expensive of all-time. Up for grabs are all 435 House seats, 35 Senate seats and 36 State Governor seats. In addition, there are statewide elections (i.e., secretary of state), ballot measures and thousands of other down-ballot elections. In what has already been a closely watched primary season, Kantar CMAG forecasts $8.4 billion in political ad dollars this year, compared to $5.4 billion in the 2018 midterm elections. The $8.4 billion Kantar now estimates rivals the $9.0 billion spent during the entire 2020 election.

To find out what to expect I asked Steve Passwaiter, the Vice President & General Manager of Kantar CMAG, several questions for his insights on the 2022 midterms. Passwaiter is responsible for the general oversight of the Kantar/CMAG business unit and leads business and product development efforts. He has run the political ad intelligence unit of Kantar since 2016 and is CMAG’s spokesperson on the matters of ad spending and strategies being deployed by political advertisers.

How has political ad spending in the primaries been compared to previous cycles?

Passwaiter: The primaries are yet to complete but like with all political spending this year, the results to date are unmistakably up. Alabama was a great example as the Republican primary to replace the retiring Richard Shelby piled up over $30 million in spending. That’s not a state with huge media markets so that $30 million represents a ton of ads. That energy transferred into down ballot races, too. The primary to be the next Mayor in Los Angeles ended up at over $30 million. Los Angeles is an expensive TV market and Rick Caruso ended up spending $24 million of that total by himself. The other winning candidate, Karen Bass, spent just over $1 million by comparison. We’ll see how much gets spent this fall in that race.

How much money is expected to be invested in political advertising during the 2022 midterm elections?

Passwaiter: We’ve been reevaluating our estimate for spending across broadcast TV, cable TV, OTT, radio, Spanish language local TV, Facebook, and GoogleGOOG
. CMAG originally projected $7.8 billion and raised that to $8 billon earlier this year. We’re now estimating $8.4 billion across these various forms of media. Of course, the totals for all political ads will exceed this number when you factor in unmeasurable platforms like direct mail, texting, etc.

Will political ad dollars be at all impacted by a more sluggish economy?

Passwaiter: There’s been a little discussion lately about some fatigue with lower dollar donors on the Republican side but that doesn’t seem to be the case with their Democratic counterparts. If we look back to the early days of the pandemic back in 2020, the lull in the economy from all the shutdowns had zero impact on spending. That was a record year if you’ll remember.

What states and markets are going to see the most political ads?

Passwaiter: The most hyperactive states out there this year are going to be Georgia, California, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Nevada. California has a big statewide ballot measure this year on online gambling and that’s already totaled over $100 million in spending. Also keep an eye open for very busy years in Illinois. Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina, and Texas.

Which media platforms will benefit the most from political ads in 2022?

Passwaiter: Broadcast TV will remain the king of the hill in these midterms with over $4 billion in projected spending. The growth story in 2022 really comes with the emergence of ad supported streaming platforms. Projections for this form of media are likely to be close to or equal to cable TV’s totals this year. There’s a lot of belief being shown in this platform by political buyers. It’s got targeting capabilities and a growing audience that’s helping buyers offset the losses in viewers available on linear TV. It also has a generally different audience made up of younger viewers.

What impact will social media vehicles Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, etc. have in the midterms?

Passwaiter: These social platforms remain meaningful and campaigns will still use them to influence and persuade voters even if there’s been sort of a souring in some quarters of the political set on their use. Despite the grumbling, they’ve become a permanent part of the advertising mix even if some of these social media players don’t have all the usefulness they once had for campaigns.

TikTok is an interesting social platform in that it doesn’t allow political ads but it is frequented by many political influencers that use the platform to actively promote any number of agendas. You might remember the White House’s flirtation with TikTok users? But, then again, there’s that ownership matter with TikTok…