As the midterm elections approach, political advertising is heating up and candidates are on track to shell out nearly $9 billion in ad spend, with $1.5 billion of that going to connected TV. Madhive, a leading tech company in the TV advertising space, recently examined current political advertising trends and discovered that average daily political impressions on connected TV are up 96% in October vs. September this year.

• In addition to the aforementioned month-over-month increase in average daily political ad impressions, there was a 46% week-over-week increase from October 10th vs October 3rd. 

• While it got off to a slow start, political ad impressions are ramping up in California, which has taken the top spot with a 32.03% increase in impressions week-over-week from October 10th vs October 3rd, and overall has captured 14% of political ad impressions. Spend is also ramping up in Arizona, which has seen a 200% increase during the same time period. 

• Some news publishers that are seeing big increases as we enter the homestretch include FOX News, CNN, MSN News, CBS News, USA Today, CNBC, and Bloomberg. Other non-news networks and platforms are seeing impression spikes as well, including Tubi, PlutoTV, ESPN, Bravo, and FX. 

• Looking at the top six congressional districts by impressions, three of them are in Wisconsin (Districts 08, 05 and 01). The others include New Hampshire District 01, Pennsylvania District 07 and California District 49. 

For a deeper look at the political advertising landscape, check out this recent article from TVREV’s Alan Wolk, which has additional insights from Madhive and a view toward political advertising and streaming.