Midterm ad spending tops $11.6 billion, but experts say voter impact is minimal

The 2026 U.S. midterm election cycle is on track to see $11.6 billion spent on political advertising. According to the advertising intelligence firm AdImpact, this figure exceeds the $8.9 billion record set in 2022 and the $11.2 billion spent during the 2024 presidential race. The surge in expenditure has drawn attention to whether such massive financial inputs actually change election outcomes.

Billionaire Elon Musk has been a major driver of the spending, contributing more than $366 million to super PACs supporting Republican candidates. Federal Election Commission filings show that Musk wrote a check for approximately $158 million last month to a Texas group backing Senate candidate Ken Paxton. Outside groups, including PACs and super PACs, have also reported roughly $3.49 billion in independent expenditures by October 27. This amount is about 79 percent higher than the figure recorded at the same point in the 2022 cycle.

Researchers question the efficiency of this spending. Katherine Haenschen, an associate professor of communication studies and political science at Northeastern University, noted that current research indicates political ads increase voter turnout by only about 1 percent. She explained that it is difficult to isolate the effect of ads from other factors influencing voters. While the effect sizes are not large, Haenschen stated that they are enough to matter in close elections. She described the core issue as one of persuasion, asking whether ads move people to get out and vote.

Koen Pauwels, a distinguished professor of marketing at Northeastern, offered a different perspective on the utility of negative advertising. He argued that many negative ads are designed to stop opposing voters from making the effort to go to the voting booth rather than to convert them to the sponsor's candidate. Pauwels said that convincing people not to make the effort to vote for an opposing candidate provides a strategic benefit to the spending group.

A large study of 146 political advertising experiments conducted through the platform Swayable during the 2018 and 2020 cycles found that ads have measurable but generally small persuasive effects. Haenschen added that comparative research has not found a clear pattern for what makes an ad persuasive across different campaigns. The U.S. campaign finance system allows for unlimited independent spending by super PACs, a framework largely established by the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling.

Digital marketing strategies have become central to modern campaigns. In the 2024 presidential election, about $1.9 billion, or roughly 17 percent of overall ad spending, went to social media platforms such as Meta, Google, Snap, and X, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. AdImpact reports that roughly $1.6 billion has been spent on digital platforms so far this cycle. Yakov Bart, a research professor of marketing at Northeastern, noted that campaigns use online data to tailor ads to specific voter groups and track interest. However, Bart pointed out that online attention does not always translate into votes or measurable candidate support.

Saturation has become a growing concern for campaigns. Haenschen observed that the cost of advertising on Texas television has become so high that some super PACs bought into national football broadcasts because a nationwide ad placement was cheaper than targeting the state alone. She attributed this to the volume of spending in the Talarico-Paxton race. With so much money being thrown at ads and little data on their effectiveness, Haenschen suggested that campaigns might be lighting their money on fire. She concluded, "I think we've reached the point of saturation."