With $10.8bn in ad spend projected for the 2026 midterms, Bradley Keefer from Keen Decision Systems explains how brands must strategically adjust their budgets to break through the political ad clutter, maximize impact, and maintain long-term marketing efforts
If you happened to live in an area where there were major elections happening in 2025, you were likely inundated with political ads. Whether linear or streaming, political ads were everywhere. With 2026 set to be a major midterm election year across the country, this will become the norm for a larger segment of the population. In fact, AdImpact is projecting political spending in the 2026 midterms to hit $10.8bn, up more than 20% from 2022.
With a more cluttered ad space, it can be hard for brands to effectively break through the noise. A political year also threatens to drive up prices.
Here are three ways brands can prepare their budgets for an election year and ensure they’re able to maximize their impact:
When planning for 2026, brands should account for environmental factors, like the election or the ongoing tariff battle, in their media mix. Using a marketing mix modeling platform can help simplify the process as it can use historical data to factor in how prices have changed during previous election cycles.
For instance, it can take advertising pricing during the 2022 midterms to see how brands adjusted and where they got the highest ROI. While each election cycle is different, this approach provides a solid baseline for brands to work against when starting their 2026 planning.
Marketers should also run different scenarios to see which channels will be most effective during an election year. AdImpact projects CTV to be the biggest media channel for this midterm cycle, totaling $2.5 bn, so brands that typically invest in streaming media might decide to invest their dollars elsewhere.
Scenario planning tools can help marketers determine whether they should shift their spending to other channels like search or social and how much they should invest to maximize their ROI.
Scenario planning can also help marketers prepare for any shifts in the market, allowing them to navigate unforeseen challenges with ease. For example, if there’s a sudden influx of political ads on social media driving up prices, marketers can use these tools to determine a new path forward.
By being nimble during an unpredictable political year, brands can ensure that they’re able to adjust quickly and keep their marketing dollars working effectively.
While the political landscape can be difficult to advertise in, it’s important that brands maintain some form of marketing budget in 2026.
Pulling back completely for any length can have a drastic impact on the long-term health of a brand. Marketing builds value over time, so if a brand decides to go dark during an election year, they’re letting the impact of past investments decay. Brands should only pull back when there are adverse marketing conditions or real business challenges, such as if they were to lose a lot of distribution at shelf.
Alternatively, a price increase is not a valid reason to stop advertising completely. Instead, brands need to allocate resources to different channels. Marketing mix modeling tools can help brands find the right mix for campaign season.
2026 will be a bonanza for political advertising, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for other advertisers. By finding the white space in alternative channels and being flexible to changes in the environment, brands can keep their investments steady and continue to see ROI from their marketing efforts.