2026 Midterms: The $11.5 Billion Political Advertising Battle 

While the 2026 midterm election machine is running in overdrive and political media strategists are raising billions of dollars to dominate the airwaves and recent primaries in New York and Colorado shocked the establishment system with major incumbents getting completely knocked out by challengers.

Now as campaigns prepared to spend record breaking sums on TV, digital and streaming platforms to sway independent voters.

The media war does come with a hefty price tag.

Well joining us live to weigh in is Tyler Goldberg.

Of political strategy at Assembly Global.

Tyler, great to have you here.

Thank you so much for joining me, Remy, always a pleasure to be here.

Well, it has been quite the year and we are counting down to November.

So tell me about the media strategies that actually cut through the noise.

It's really interesting because we're leaving the primary phase of the election, as you mentioned.

There were some recent primaries obviously making news.

We're heading into the general election with still billions and billions of dollars to be spent.

We've actually increased.

Increased our projections over the past few months based on the just onslaught of spending, we're probably going to see north of $11.5 billion this year, which would make it the most expensive election cycle on record, including presidential years.

And as you mentioned, that is quite the staggering sum here.

And right now you and I were streaming online as well as on television.

So when it comes to the different mediums out there that are working, what's working?

And what's not, so you're seeing a lot more money go into streaming than in past election cycles.

That's, you know, makes sense, right?

Follows the trend of general market advertising where you're still seeing strength in political advertising versus other fields is in broadcast and linear TV.

It will still make up over half of all political spending will still be on linear TV, and that's what really sort of sets political advertising apart from.

You know, your regular commercial advertising.

Yes, and I know that you're entrenched in all these data points and you're keeping an eye on what's successful and what's not.

So when it comes to the breakdown in terms of demographics, tell us what's really happening below the surface.

I mean, we are in a, I would call it a typical, which is an interesting word to throw around the American political scene these days, but I would say it's a typical midterm year where the incumbent party, in this case the Republicans, Really on the back foot and defending a lot of seats in November.

You're seeing this across the board in polling with independent voters starting to swing more towards Democrats.

That does not mean that this is going to be an absolute landslide for Democrats.

There's still 111 days and billions of dollars to be spent before that can be determined, but what you're seeing is Republicans having to defend the policies of the past couple of years.

We're getting into earnest.

Season, right?

And one thing that we can agree investors and the markets hate is confusion and uncertainty.

There has been a lot of confusion and uncertainty emanating from the White House just in the past couple of years, and I think that's really having an effect on the markets as well as the voters.

Yes, and absolutely 2026 has been the year of volatility as well as uncertainty, and as you mentioned, earnings season has kicked off, and we are here on Wall Street, so.

Let's talk about spending when it comes to these ad campaigns.

Does spending guarantee a win now?

Absolutely not.

I mean, you will see there are some cases.

Tom Steyer is a prime example in California, ran for governor, spent well over $100 million I think it was more like $120 million did not make it into the next round, so it doesn't guarantee a win.

However, in these big marquee races, money is an absolute.

Essential.

You have to have it to be competitive.

And finally, before I let you go, looking closer at the data, what are voters and consumers actually telling you right now?

It's all about affordability and that is sort of infecting every other issue.

I mean, we look at the war in Iran.

We're 5 months into a war that was allegedly over on March 9th.

We are in a place where voters are more concerned about their policies at home and how it affects them rather than the uncertainty.

With sort of geopolitics and what's going on around the world, and I think that's something you're going to see straight up through the election.

And very quickly we have less than 60 seconds here, so give us an idea of which specific swing regions as well as districts are actually going to decide the majority here.

It's interesting.

There will obviously be important races in Georgia, Michigan, Maine has been in the news a lot recently for obvious reasons.

I'm actually looking at Iowa and Alaska as my two.

Potential sort of surprise seats.

Democrats are really making a strong play in both of those states, and then the fundraising numbers for James Tarico in Texas have been eye-watering.

And so I think those three states are certainly Democrats can be successful without them, but if they have them, they will be in really good shape come November 3rd.

Well, as we head into the second half of this year, as well as the final quarter of the year, I'm sure we will have you back on.

So thank you so much for joining.