Advertisers Spent $5.25B on the Mid-Term Election

• Local cable doubled its revenue from the 2014 midterms and digital ads almost quadrupled

The dust hasn’t completely settled on the 2018 midterm elections yet, with a few races still in limbo. However, broadcast, cable and digital outlets are tallying their ad revenue haul from this year and, not surprisingly, it’s a record-breaker.

In the 2018 midterm elections, $5.25 billion was spent on advertising in local broadcast, local cable and digital, according to Kantar Media, which makes it the most lucrative midterms in history. The 2018 election spending was 78 percent higher than the 2014 midterms, which had a $2.95 billion haul, and even beat the 2016 presidential election spend—$4.47 billion, including $122 million in national buys—by 17 percent.

Digital ads, which ran most often on Facebook and Google, almost quadrupled from 2014, jumping from $250 million to $950 million. The 2016 election digital ad spend was $650 million.

The local broadcast and local cable spends were both greater than the 2016 election year totals.

Local broadcast political ad revenue, at $2.1 billion in 2014, increased to $2.85 billion in 2016 and $3.1 billion in 2018. Local cable, which brought in $600 million in 2014, doubled to $1.2 billion in 2018 and was at $850 million in 2016.

Democrats outspent Republicans in this year’s state and federal races by a 53 percent/46 percent margin. In the 2010 midterms, Republicans held a 54 percent/45 percent lead, as they campaigned heavily against the Affordable Care Act. Four years later, Republicans still led by a 51 percent/47 percent margin.

In other Kantar findings, ads supporting Democratic candidates referenced healthcare 1 million times, accounting for 49 percent of all Democrat ads overall and 59 percent of all Democratic ads for House races. Many of those Democratic ads claimed that Republican candidates were in favor of eliminating health insurance coverage for people with pre-existing conditions and frequently tallied the number of residents in the district that would be impacted by such a change. In comparison, just 367,000 of Republican election ads mentioned healthcare. Instead, that party’s spots focused on tax reform, immigration and record levels of employment.

One out of every 10 Democratic spots carried an anti-President Trump message, while one of every 10 Republican ads mentioned House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (for House races, that number jumped to one of every four).

One of the largest outside Democratic groups says ramped-up spending on digital advertising played a key role in midterm battleground races, offering a lesson for potential presidential contenders in 2020, reports the Associated Press.

“You’re going to have to have an organization that speaks directly to voters on their phones and their computers,” said Guy Cecil, chairman of Priorities USA, which spearheaded the much of the party’s digital effort during the recent midterm elections. “If the presidential candidates do not have that as a central part of their operation, they will not win.”

Democrats are trying to draw in new voters who are young, diverse and college educated. But at a time when cord-cutting millennials and their parents alike are spending more time online, the party remains disproportionately committed to TV advertising, strategists say, a dynamic that could complicate those efforts.

“Who is watching broadcast television, who is watching Wheel of Fortune, who is watching Jeopardy? They are older, white and they tend to not be Democratic voters,” said Tim Lim, who worked on the campaigns of former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and is now a fellow at Georgetown’s Institute of Politics. “By focusing so much on broadcast TV ads, we are missing crucial audiences to talk to.”