Election 2024—political ad spending dominated by U.S. Senate races

Most political ad spending so far in 2024 isn’t in the presidential campaign, but in the battle for control of the U.S. Senate. WinSenate, controlled by Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, leads all political advertisers and is committed to $250 million in spending early in the election cycle. It is crushing its closest competitor, the pro-Republican Senate Leadership Fund, by a nearly 4-to-1 margin. WinSenate has placed its money in seven states. Leading the pack is Ohio ($63 million) followed by Pennsylvania ($42 million) and Nevada ($36 million). Dollars have also been placed in Montana, Arizona, Wisconsin and Michigan—where Democrats are trying to keep the seat held by Sen. Debbie Stabenow. The Nevada race, too, has taken on new importance as polling shows Incumbent Democratic Sen. Jackie Rosen’s seat very much in play. Rosen has poured just more than $15 million into Nevada media in the past month. Analysts at the Cook Political Report moved this race into the toss-up column, while both Inside Elections and Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball still have this seat as leaning/tilting toward Democrats. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs The same has happened in Arizona, where the state’s Supreme Court injected itself into the race by affirming the legality of an 1864 law outlawing abortions from the moment of conception except to save the mother’s life. While the eventual outcome is still in play (the state’s House of Representatives recently passed a law to overturn it), Sabato’s Crystal Ball moved this race from toss-up to leaning Democratic. Arizona’s Senate primary is scheduled for July 30 and it’s likely that the winners will be Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego and Kari Lake, the former Republican gubernatorial candidate. Spending commitments to date are modest, with WinSenate leading with approximately $25 million. Gallego’s campaign has spent more than $3 million thus far while the Lake campaign has spent less than $100,000. Expect Gallego to have a massive cash advantage through his own fundraising and that of the Democratic Party in general. Republicans will struggle to overcome this advantage. Montana has one of the more competitive races between Democratic Sen. Jon Tester and Republican challenger Tim Sheehy, a former Navy Seal. There are concerns about whether there’s enough inventory in the state to handle the massive amounts of spending that’s going to happen. Rumors of media buyers reaching out to media sellers to capture more inventory in the final months of the campaign are rampant. It’s a foregone conclusion that this will be the most expensive election race in the history of Montana. Media owners in Montana are looking at an incredible harvest of dollars. Spending commitments are pushing $150 million and CTV has a limited ability to reach voters in a heavily rural state. Montana’s media buying challenges were a popular topic at the bipartisan Pollie Awards—presented for excellence in political communications and public affairs—in Washington, D.C., in mid-April. Pennsylvania has become the center of the American political universe. James Carville’s description of the Keystone State as “Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between” comes to mind in this election year: April 23 was primary day and to no one’s surprise, both incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican David McCormick won their primary races. This will set up what will likely be the most expensive Senate race of 2024. Casey—whose father, Bob Casey Sr. was the state’s extremely popular governor from 1987 to 1995—is slightly favored by all three analyst firms. McCormick will be a formidable competitor and can fund part of his own run, helping to blunt the Democrats’ overall cash advantage. Expect every advertiser in existence to focus on this race and for inventory to be in short supply—and incredibly expensive. There’s at least one surprise in every election cycle, and this time it’s in Maryland, where Democrats thought they’d have an easy time replacing retiring Sen. Ben Cardin. Almost every prominent Maryland Democrat supports Prince George County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, who would be the state’s first senator of color. Her endorsements include Gov. Wes Moore, U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen and Reps. Steny Hoyer, Jamie Raskin and John Sarbanes. Alsobrooks’ ad campaign centers on Baltimore’s Democratic voters, since Prince George County, which hugs the eastern border of Washington, D.C., lies 43 miles distant from Maryland’s largest city. But Democratic Rep. David Trone, a wealthy businessman, has been advertising early and often—using a lot of his own money—to beat Alsobrooks in the May 14 primary. Trone has spent nearly $30 million, focusing most of that on the Baltimore market where he’s not well known. See all of Ad Age’s 2024 Creativity Award winners here Trone argues that he’s ready to spend to defeat former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, a Never Trumper who is very popular with Maryland’s heavily Democratic voter base, in the general election. Hogan would be first Maryland Republican in more than 40 years to win a Senate seat. Hogan is out with his own ad campaign in coordination with the National Republican Senate Committee. His primary competition isn’t the strongest and he’s a near certainty to win the Republican nomination. The bad news for Democrats: Hogan leads Alsobrooks by 17 points and Trone by 12 in an April survey of nearly 1,300 likely voters commissioned by The Baltimore Sun, the University of Baltimore and WBFF-TV. The numbers closely follow a poll by the Washington Post and the University of Maryland in March. There’s a long way to go before Election Day, and analysts still believe this race is safely in the hands of Democrats and that Democrats supporting Hogan at this point are likely to return in the fall. Hogan is nonetheless a dangerous distraction for Democrats, forcing them to spend money and attention in large media markets such as Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Those dollars will need to come from somewhere else and could water down the effort in other important races. As always, thanks to Vivvix/CMAG for sharing spending totals from its Competitive Navigator. Sign up for Ad Age newsletters From influencer marketing to agencies, get the latest news and analysis delivered to your inbox Click here

Election 2024—political ad spending dominated by U.S. Senate races

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