U.S. Political Media Spend: Heat Maps & AMII Values
Interact with each state to see their total political spending (digital + TV) YTD
Political Media Spend YTD by State
October 31, 2022: YTD Spend + AMII Values
As expected, spending has been the highest in DMAs like Boston, Atlanta, Phoenix, and Las Vegas. Some other honorable mentions were Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Milwaukee – again all of which were predicted by the Assembly Marketing Intensity Index (AMII) to have large amounts of spending. The biggest surprises have been New York City (more activity than expected) and Dallas/Houston (less activity than expected), which further reiterates the fluidity of local media spend.
New York - While we anticipated a good deal amount of activity in the NYC DMA (AMII: 7.5), the sheer amount of political spending in the market has been shocking. By the end of the cycle, the NYC DMA will have seen close to $125 million in spending – putting it right toward the top of DMAs nationwide. What’s even more notable is that nearly 70% of that total ($87 million) was spent from October 1-November 8.
Dallas and Houston - While each DMA is different, both Dallas and Houston were expected to be politically intense. However, for the same reasons that New York City saw more spending than expected – totals for Dallas and Houston saw less spending than expected. Once again, as national trends continued to favor Republicans, money that would have been spent targeting incumbents in Texas had to be reallocated to shoring up Democrats elsewhere.
*Disclaimer: The political ad landscape moves at lightning speed, so the numbers are changing daily. This data was pulled on Monday, October 31, 2022.
October 4, 2022: YTD Spend + AMII Values
New players have entered the mix this week with New York entering into the $100M+ range and states like Colorado and Oregon not far behind.
*Disclaimer: The political ad landscape moves at lightning speed, so the numbers are changing daily. This data was pulled on Monday, October 3, 2022.
September 13, 2022: YTD Spend + AMII Values + the "Big, but not Hot" Markets
Low Spend/Big Markets: Birmingham AL, Springfield MO, Memphis TN, Charleston SC, Louisville KY, New Orleans LA, Indianapolis IN, Oklahoma City OK.
*Disclaimer: The political ad landscape moves at lightning speed, so the numbers are changing daily. This data was pulled on Monday, September 12, 2022.
August 30, 2022: Introducing the AMII + YTD Spend
What's new? We've layered the total political spending with our proprietary AMII (Assembly Market Intensity Index) values across 15 different DMAs, including this season's hottest markets, mixed with others less steamy, to see the range.
What's our methodology for the AMII?
Assembly's Market Intensity Index is a 1-10 scale of how crowded a given market will be during the 2022 election cycle. This includes all of Q3 and early Q4. It's based on a number of factors including: number of races in a DMA, competitiveness of said races, expected outside/issue group involvement, market size, spillover into competitive districts/states, and geographic location of the market within a competitive state. Though grounded in specific and tangible data, AMII is further informed by Assembly's Political Strategy team's unique expertise in the field of tracking political media spend nationwide.
*Disclaimer: The political ad landscape moves at lightning speed, so the numbers are changing daily. This data was pulled on Wednesday, August 17, 2022.
August 16, 2022: Assembly's Political Heat Map - YTD Spend
*Disclaimer: The political ad landscape moves at lightning speed, so the numbers are changing daily. This data was pulled on Thursday, August 4, 2022.