Just when you think that political campaigns just cannot spend more money than last cycle …

AdImpact, the media intelligence company, updated its 2021-22 projections on political ad spending and with fewer than 100 days remaining to the general election, spending is on pace to reach historic heights.

Quoting the report, “With massive increases in political expenditures coming year after year, a new norm has been established in the world of political advertising. It no longer takes a presidential ticket at the top of the ballot to push a cycle near the $10 billion threshold.”

AdImpact projects Pennsylvania to see approximately $609 million in spending by campaigns – ranking 2nd in the country only behind California ($755M). Illinois ($606M) and Arizona ($600M) are also expected to top the $600 million mark.

Surrounding states such as New York ($453M) and Ohio ($344M) are also expected to see massive spending, while Maryland ($141M), New Jersey ($91M) and West Virginia ($37M) should see much less.

The 2022 political cycle is already the most expensive midterm on record with three months to go. This year’s cycle has seen $4.88 billion spent, compared to $3.96B in the entire 2018 cycle. With the majority of the spending coming after Labor Day and headed into the fall, AdImpact projects that 2022 will reach a final projected total of $9.67B to surpass 2020 as the most expensive political cycle of all time.

Senate

Six U.S. Senate races have already surpassed the $100 million threshold – Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Wisconsin and Ohio. Only Florida saw spending reach the $100M mark in 2018.

Pennsylvania trails only Georgia in projected spending with the Keystone State coming in at $261M to the Peach State’s $276M.

Governor

AdImpact projects that the 2022 gubernatorial cycle will end with $2.23 billion spent on races that far outpaces the 2018 total of $1.1B.

Illinois ($250M) and Georgia ($231M) have both topped the $200 million mark thus far. Six other states have seen over $100M in spending – Arizona ($164M), Nevada ($162M), Kansas ($149M), Michigan ($140M), Wisconsin ($126M) and Pennsylvania ($115M).

U.S. House

AdImpact is projecting that $1.88 billion will be spent on House races this cycle – a 40 percent increase over 2020 and a 60 percent increase over 2018. Pennsylvania ranks seventh among all states with a projected spending total of $93M. California leads the way at $259M.

Media Type

Where is the $9.67 billion allocated? Broadcast TV still rules the roost at $4.98B or 51.45%. Cable TV ($1.54B), Digital ($1.44B) and Connected TV ($1.44B) – think streaming – are tightly bunched between 15-16 percent. Radio $0.27B) accounts for just 2.8 percent of the pot.

AdImpact collects, analyzes, and reports on more than 21 billion TV ad impressions daily, in real-time, involving more than 60,000 brands and advertisers. Coverage includes all national broadcast networks, 1,100 local broadcasters, and more than 180 cable TV networks across all 210 Nielsen DMAs. AdImpact is the only media intelligence company with zip code level ad detection, with a dataset that contains more than 6,500 advertisers active in 5 DMAs or less. AdImpact also tracks digital media advertising, including more than 36,500 digital advertisers and publishers.