In this episode, Carl Mayer sits down with Alaina Donnellon, Senior Vice President Local Media at Active International, to discuss political ad spending projections for the 2026 midterms and what's driving the increased spending.
About Alaina Donnellon:
Alaina has over 15 years of experience at Active, specializing in the local video and audio marketplace. She has held positions of increasing responsibility in media buying, strategy and account management throughout her career. As Senior Vice President, Local Media, Alaina leads a dynamic team of over 50 media professionals with oversight on all local campaigns. Her role involves close collaboration with internal and external partners to craft strategic solutions, steering Active's clients through the ever-evolving video and audio landscape.
Transcript:
Carl Mayer: Welcome to About That. I'm Carl Mayer. We're already seeing record spending for the 2026 midterm election campaigns. And here to help explain everything is Alaina Donnellon. She's SVP of local media, print and out of home at AMS.
Alaina, thanks for being here on About That.
Alaina Donnellon: Thanks for having me.
Carl Mayer (CM): And welcome back, another appearance.
Alaina Donnellon (AD): Thank you very much.
CM: So far to date, we're over $1.7 billion in spending for the 2026 midterms. That's only going to ramp up when we get into 2026 proper. What's spurring all of this spending?
AD: Yeah, it's a lot of money spent so far. It's a record high start off for a midterm election. They're projecting about $10.8 billion total to be spent towards the 2026 elections.
We're seeing a lot of competitive races, especially because we have, you know, Republicans have current control of Congress. You know, we have a Republican president. There's a lot of drive for the parties, both of them, to either retain that control or jump in and take some of that control.
We saw that in the past month's election in 2025, super competitive. Over $860 million spent for 2025, which was a record high for an off year and advertisers felt that impact. You know, there was a lot of competition in states like New Jersey, Virginia, New York, Wisconsin, California, and advertisers were certainly impacted.
So they had to be flexible and, you know, look at some alternatives. We're expecting that to continue going into 2026 as we see increased spend, certainly for Congress, where we're going to see some really competitive raises.
CM: With seemingly more of these states that weren't competitive, districts that weren't competitive becoming competitive, how much of that ad spending is going to be for Senate and House spending?
AD: So the projection right now is about $5 billion for Senate and House, which is just under half of that 10.8 billion.
There's going to be very competitive races across a variety of states. And we're also seeing some states like Texas, California, Ohio, North Carolina, among others, look at some redistricting, which is essentially redrawing those congressional maps, which impacts the House races to potentially benefit either party, whether it's Democrats or Republicans picking up more of those House seats.
So advertisers are going to need to be looking at the individual markets that they're looking to advertise in and keeping tabs on those to see how that's going to impact those markets and what they might need to do to protect their individual campaigns for next year.
CM: So what are some things that they can do? Because as the spending goes up, you know, it seems that there's endless coffers of money that the packs and the campaigns and the parties have access to, but not an unlimited supply of ad inventory. So they can keep an eye on it. They can keep their finger on the pulse.
What can they actually do as a tactic to still get their message out there in this world of just fewer avails?
AD: Sure. So, you know, brands aren't going to be able to completely avoid being impacted by political spend. We're seeing an increase every cycle.
Some of the things that they can do now in getting into 2026 is looking at Upfront campaigns, laying those in across the stations in their markets that they're looking to advertise in. That's going to help them kind of get in a little bit early and then be notified if there might need to be any adjustments further down the road.
Expecting to be flexible in terms of if they need to shift into other areas, like moving from broadcast to CTV, or even looking at a broadcast stations, digital extensions or sponsorships that they might be able to take advantage of. In lieu of a traditional spot schedule that can help them keep their audience where they want in a little bit of a less cluttered environment.
CM: So there is a lot to unpack, a lot to discuss. We could seriously talk about this forever. I could. You might get bored, but unfortunately, we're bumping up on the end of the show here. So just on the way out.
What's something you think is an interesting thing that everybody should know about that maybe they don't now?
AD: We've seen a lot of increase in hybrid ads, which is when a political party jointly funds a campaign with a political candidate as a strategy to get the benefit of the station's LUR, or lowest unit rate, which is typically only available to a candidate within the political window.
We're seeing a lot of increase there. There's also legislation that's pending right now that they're trying to get that campaign funding increase. Right now, there's a limit on what political party can contribute to a candidate's campaign, and there's an effort to try to increase that limit and loose end those regulations.
So if we see that happen, that's certainly going to be something that would drive a lot more spend into a lot of those competitive markets, which is something that advertisers just need to be on the lookout for.
CM: 2026 is going to be hectic and chaotic. Thank you for helping kind of keep that at Bay and make it make sense. Alaina Donnellon You're welcome anytime you want back to About That.
AD: Thank you.
CM: Thank you for being here.
AD: Thanks so much.
CM: And we'll see you next time.
Click here to view previous episodes.
For additional insights into 2026 political ad spending, read Alaina Donnellon’s article featured in TVNewsCheck https://tvnewscheck.com/business/article/political-advertising-in-2026-will-be-a-bumpy-ride/.
Posted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership self-publishing platform.
Click the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friends.
The opinions expressed here are the author's views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillage.org/MyersBizNet.