With elections fast approaching, voters across the U.S. are awash in a flood of political advertising. But while record spending was predicted, the tenor and nature of the blitz is fueling fresh debate over the outsized role of ads in modern campaigns.
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The controversy over ads is at center stage in Ohio, where the Republican running for governor, Vivek Ramaswamy, this week released a spot featuring the estranged mother of his opponent, Democrat Amy Acton.
Many Democrats and some Republicans decried the intensely personal attack on Acton, who has spoken openly about her abuse as a child. But Ramaswamy’s campaign said it intended to spend $4 million to get the ad in front of voters.
That represents just a fraction of ad spending this election cycle, raising questions about the direction and effect of large-scale political marketing campaigns.
How Does Ad Spending Compare to Past Election Years?
Political ad spending this cycle has already topped $10 billion. But tracking firm AdImpact expects it to reach a record $12 billion by Election Day. That would far outpace the $8.9 billion spent on ads during the last midterm elections in 2022 and the $11.2 billion spent during the 2024 presidential election cycle.
The ads are showing up in more than 300 races across the country, according to Kinetiq Political Insights. But spending has been concentrated in 13 states, many with major media markets and intense election battles, including Ohio, Texas and Georgia.
Where Is the Money Coming From?
This year’s flood of political ads is notable not just for its scale, but for the sources of the money and how it’s being spent.
As the fall began, political action committees and other outside groups had already reserved more than $1.2 billion in airtime for ads, according to KPI. The spending, though, is lopsided, with Republican-aligned outside groups reserving more than all Democratic advertisers put together.
President Donald Trump said recently that his political action committee had already spent $300 million to bolster Republican candidates and intended to spend $100 million more. In good news for Democrats, billionaire Michael Bloomberg is sending $80 million to their campaigns, his team said this week.
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How Is the Ad Cash Being Spent?
Republican groups have targeted much of their spending on television ads. Meanwhile, Democrats are spending heavily on digital advertising, roughly doubling their Republican counterparts in that category.
Those differences in strategy are particularly sharp in races for the House of Representatives, where Republicans currently hold a narrow majority. Groups aligned with Democrats have devoted about 26% of their ad budgets to online spots, compared to 14% for Republican groups. Democratic candidates are also devoting a larger share of their cash to digital advertising than their Republican opponents.
Groups and campaigns have ramped up spending on ads made with artificial intelligence, according to Wesleyan University researchers. They detected less than $50,000 in spending on AI-generated ads in 2024. But this cycle, they’ve spotted more than $137 million spending on videos made at least partly with AI, with the majority of it coming from Republican groups.
What Difference Do Ads Make?
While the barrage of political ads is hard to ignore, experts question their effectiveness in swaying large numbers of voters.
“We do think at the margins they are persuasive,” Jacob Neiheisel, a University at Buffalo professor who studies political advertising, told WDIV-TV in Detroit. “But the power is limited and usually fairly short-lived.”
Researchers have found that people exposed to online ads that discouraged voting were less likely to cast a ballot, but only by about 2%. Still, given the narrow margins deciding some elections, ads that make even a small difference in turnout could have an outsized impact.
In Ohio, where the race for governor has been characterized by personal attacks, it’s unclear if the controversial ad put out by the Ramaswamy campaign will have an impact, said Melissa K. Miller, a Bowling Green State University professor who studies voter behavior.
At this late point in the campaign, Miller told The New York Times, many voters have already made up their minds on the candidates and are tuning out the ads flooding television broadcasts.
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