On September 4, your fourth quarter media plan runs into the most expensive election advertising cycle on record.
That’s the day the 60-day lowest unit charge window opens. Under this federal rule, broadcast TV and radio stations, cable systems, and satellite TV providers must offer candidates the lowest rate they can charge anyone for an equivalent spot, based on length, timing, and whether it can be bumped.
It’s also when you’re launching holiday campaigns, defending year-end revenue, and bidding against political money for the same premium inventory.
AdImpact projects the 2025 to 2026 election cycle will reach a record $11.6 billion in media spend, 30% above the 2022 midterm record and more than the 2024 presidential cycle. Inflation plays a role in those numbers as everything has gotten more expensive in recent years. CPMs are no exception.
That number is large, inflation or not. It’s also easy to misread as a uniform risk impacting every media activation. In reality, political spending is concentrated in a short list of races, markets, and channels, with half of all spending going to just ten states.
That makes exposure a market and channel question instead of a national problem. A national pullback strategy risks more than the pricing problem it’s meant to solve.
A record cycle, unevenly distributed
Broadcast television is projected to capture 48% of political ad spending at $5.6 billion. Connected TV is the fastest-growing political medium at $2.7 billion, or 23% of cycle spending. Add cable’s $1.4 billion and television in all its forms takes 83% of the cycle spend. Video is where the competition for inventory concentrates, which is typical for election season.
Digital spending is projected to reach $1.6 billion, or about 14% of cycle spending, including social media. Radio accounts for $273 million, or just over 2%.
The money is already moving. Political advertising reached $6.1 billion through August 24, over half the cycle total before the most expensive stretch begins.
Based on the election schedule, AdImpact expects August through November to carry 58% to 67% of cycle spend, October alone carries 28% to 36%. In 2024, rates rose 38% from the April to June period into September, another 20% in October, and another 13% in November.
In October 2024, average candidate rates in the top five markets ran 200% above the overall average, $1,666 versus $555, and issue groups paid a 117% premium.
Pressure also concentrates geographically and will continue to move as races evolve. California and Michigan are the two most expensive states at $979 million and $852 million. Texas and Ohio follow closely behind at $850 million and $749 million, with Maine coming in at $491 million. Ohio has seen the largest upward revision of any state, climbing $309 million since September 2025.
A retailer with stores across Ohio and Georgia and a heavy investment in local television faces real pricing pressure. An ecommerce brand concentrated in paid search, CRM, and other lower-exposure channels may face far less disruption.
Same election. Very different exposure.
Broadcast will feel it first
Broadcast faces two problems. First, campaigns are competing for limited airtime, so stations may bump or reschedule lower-priced brand placements. Second, the rules governing who can claim the lowest unit charge have changed three times this year. As a reminder, under the lowest unit charge rule, candidates get the cheapest comparable rate on a station’s books during the 60 days before the election.
For the legal nerds out there, here is what is going down. On March 30, the FCC said candidate pricing could apply when campaigns raise money with political parties and when parties help pay for campaign advertising.
Then, on June 30, the Supreme Court removed limits on how much political parties could spend when working directly with candidates. Together those two changes would have moved a large amount of party money onto candidate pricing. AdImpact estimated that if the guidance had applied in 2024, as much as $338 million more in political advertising could have qualified.
On August 25, the Fourth Circuit Court set the FCC guidance aside, ruling 2 to 1 that the discount belongs to candidates alone. TheNational Republican Senatorial Committee has said it will appeal. Unless that succeeds before rates set on September 4, party committees pay market rates this cycle.
Either way, more political money is chasing the same broadcast inventory. Plan for tighter availability regardless of who pays for it.
Outside of broadcast, there is still a lot happening. CTV is not required to offer candidate pricing, but it still feels the squeeze. Political campaigns are putting more money in streaming as Americans increasingly cut the cord. At the same time, brands pushed out of broadcast are competing for that same CTV inventory. The pressure can extend to YouTube, programmatic video, news, and live sports.
Paid search should be less affected because brands and political campaigns are generally bidding on different search terms. Video is more exposed. YouTube and video placements within Performance Max may face greater competition, while digital audio, podcasts, digital out of home, and lower-pressure social channels provide other places to move investment.
Your exposure depends on where your budget is concentrated, as not all digital channels face the same pressure.
Don’t hand competitors the quarter
When prices rise and inventory tightens, waiting until after Election Day can feel like the safest option. Election pressure is localized, while holiday shopping, product launches, and other sources of demand continue nationwide. Pulling back everywhere sacrifices demand-building weeks during Q4 to avoid a problem limited to certain markets and channels.
Fewer weeks of awareness means higher acquisition costs in December and a brand line that gets cut again next planning cycle because nobody could show what it did.
Consumers do not become unreachable during an election. iSpot found 43% of Americans consider non-political ads acceptable or more likeable while political ads are running. Response to brand advertising also held steady in the three months before the 2016 and 2020 elections.
Identify where the risk is real and protect the placements that matter. Move the flexible dollars somewhere they can still deliver.
What’s locked and what can still move
In the markets facing the most political demand, the same budget may buy less reach, premium inventory may become harder to secure, and preemptible broadcast spots may be bumped or rescheduled. Even when a station provides replacement airtime, it may come too late to support the launch, promotion, or sales window the original placement was meant to serve.
By September, much of a fourth quarter media plan is already committed, but not every decision is final.
Likely locked: broadcast reservations and negotiated rates, premium CTV commitments, sponsorships, production schedules, campaign dates, and contractual terms for bumped placements and replacement airtime.
Review these commitments for delivery risk, not only cost. Which broadcast placements can be bumped? What protection did you buy? If replacement airtime runs three weeks later, will it still support the campaign?
Still movable: digital investment by market and channel, paid social publisher mix, YouTube and programmatic video budgets, search campaign types, geographic targeting, creative rotation, and rules for when budgets move.
Decide where the money will move before conditions change. Set the alternatives, approval process, and thresholds now. Waiting for prices to rise or delivery to fall turns every decision into a scramble.
What to do now
Start with the ten markets that matter most to fourth quarter revenue. Compare them with AdImpact’s political spending projections, then evaluate each market across four factors:
- Market importance. How much revenue, customer growth, and seasonal demand comes from each market?
- Political pressure. How much political spending is expected in that market, and when will it peak?
- Media exposure. How much of your plan depends on broadcast, CTV, video, radio, or news inventory?
- Room to move. Which investments can shift without sacrificing reach, timing, or the campaign’s purpose?
Once you put those factors together, the problem usually gets smaller. A high-value market with heavy political spending and a large broadcast investment needs stronger delivery protection or a backup channel plan. A lower-priority market isn’t worth defending at a higher cost. A strategically important market can remain active through a different channel mix.
Our strategists run the scenarios through Polaris IQ Growth Planner, our media mix model, to forecast how moving investment across markets and channels affects business outcomes before the money moves. It forecasts at 95% accuracy.
Agree in advance on what will trigger a change. Set thresholds for prices, delivery, bumped spots, and CPA or ROAS drift. Decide what happens next, who can approve it, and how often the plan will be reviewed.
Want to know how the midterm elections could affect your business? Contact us to map your election exposure.
This is the first blog in our midterm election series. Follow us on social to catch the rest.
