The 119th Congress has just begun, and President-elect Trump has yet to be sworn-in, but the next campaign season is already in motion. As radio managers make their budgets for the coming year or two, early data shows stations in certain markets can plan on seeing some political advertising dollars.
The ad tracking firm AdImpact has already tracked $13.3 million of political ad buys in the 2025 and 2026 races. That includes $4.9 million allocated to 2025 and roughly $8.4 million to 2026.
The early spending is highly localized. AdImpact says the biggest 2025 races so far is the New Jersey gubernatorial race where $3.1 million of ad buys have already been placed. The result is 42% of the ad buys placed so far are in the New York market, with another 14% in Philadelphia.
Elsewhere, nearly a million dollars ($937,000) of advertising has also been placed in Florida for a special election to fill the seat held by Republican Matt Gaetz, who resigned in November after winning his re-election bid with a 66% share of the vote. The third-biggest ad market for political buys so far is Tennessee, where $316,000 of ad time has been purchased as part of an intrastate fight over school vouchers, including allowing tax money to cover the tuition of a student going to a private school.
Perhaps more surprising is that some money is already being spent on elections not being held until 2026. AdImpact says $4 million of ads have been laid in for the Illinois gubernatorial race with the biggest advertiser Gov. JB Pritzker, who will seek a new term.
The agriculture community is also gearing up for a fight with $2.2 million of ad buys, led by the advocacy group Modern Ag Alliance, as it defends the use of farm chemicals like Roundup. And there is already $962,000 on a California ballot issue related to privacy.
Currently, AdImpact says the biggest recipient of ad dollars related to 2026 races is radio, accounting for nearly four in ten (38%) of every dollar spent, followed by cable TV (22%) and broadcast TV (20%).
In the past, the so-called off-year elections have netted a bigger share of ad dollars for radio than presidential years when broadcast television sucks up most of the money. But in sheer dollars, it will be tough for radio to beat last year. AdImpact calculates $326 million was spent on radio during the 2024 cycle as spending reached a record $11.1 billion.
As in the past, broadcast television had the biggest share of all media ad spending. AdImpact says its $5.35 billion total accounted for 48% of the cycle’s total. However, it was the first time that broadcast TV’s share slid below 50%.
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