AdImpact’s June 11 forecast puts political advertising across the 2025-2026 U.S. election cycle at $11.6 billion, which would be a record and exceed the firm’s earlier cycle benchmarks. The estimate covers federal and state races.
The firm put advertising at $8.9 billion for the 2022 midterms and $11.2 billion for the 2024 presidential cycle. It linked the higher projection to more spending in competitive Senate and gubernatorial contests. For Senate races, its estimate rose to $3.4 billion from a previous $2.8 billion.
Federal Election Commission (FEC) figures track campaign receipts, a different measure from AdImpact’s advertising projection. For Jan. 1, 2025, through June 30, 2026, congressional candidates reported $2.7991 billion in receipts, party committees reported $1.3764 billion and political action committees (PACs) reported $8.3074 billion, the commission said. The FEC separately listed $643.4 million in independent expenditures and did not combine the receipt categories into one cyclewide total.
In its same-stage comparison, the FEC put congressional candidate receipts at $2.7991 billion in 2026, compared with $2.4633 billion in 2024. The 2026 figure was the highest among the cycles in its table, which goes back to 2014. The commission said the 2026 data also include activity tied to special elections in 2025 and 2026.
