The political ad wars are still being fought over the airwaves even as digital gains share

While advertising dollars increasingly shift toward streaming and digital platforms, the political ad war is still being fought over the free airwaves.

Broadcast television companies are set to capture the greatest portion of political ad spend ahead of the midterm elections, according to advertising intelligence company AdImpact.

The 2025-26 election cycle is forecast to be the most expensive on record, with a predicted $11.6 billion in total spending. That's higher than the $11.2 billion spent on advertising during the 2024 presidential election cycle and the $8.9 billion spent during the 2022 midterms.

An estimated $5.6 billion of advertising spend ahead of the midterms, or 48%, is expected to go to broadcast companies, AdImpact found.

"It's still a local game," said StoneX Equity Research Analyst Daniel Kurnos in an interview. "Yes, there are national elections, but you have to win counties. And if you have to win counties, you have to reach voters in these counties."

Broadcast audiences — those tuning into NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox or their local affiliate stations — are generally more politically active, Kurnos said: "You cater to the demos that vote. You cater to the votes that matter."

That makes political advertising one of the last bastions of broadcast's dominance.

While broadcasters are expected to capture roughly half of political advertising spending this cycle, they account for just 7.7% of the more than $470 billion in general advertising spend forecast for this year in the United States, according to Magna data published by S&P Global in July.

Terry Nelson, a founding partner of Plus Communications and the national political director for former President George W. Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, told CNBC that broadcast spots allow political strategists to reach large numbers of voters "as efficiently as we can from a cost perspective."

Though cord-cutting has reshaped the TV landscape as customers drop cable, broadcast remains free and broadly accessible.

Broadcast, which transmits local news, sports, classic game shows like "Wheel of Fortune" and national networks, captured more hours of television use than cable in July, according to Nielsen's most recent monthly streaming report, The Gauge. The category accounted for 19.5% of television use, while cable captured 18.7%. Streaming led television use by far, at 49%.

Broadcast is still particularly good at delivering high viewership during live sports games, Nelson noted.