Advertising
CTV Overtakes Cable in Political Ad Spend for the First Time in a Midterm
Adweek
“And of the $2.5 billion uptick in investment from the 2022 midterms, more than half (53%) has gone to connected TV.”
Campaigns
Field Report: How AI is Being Used in the 2026 Midterms
Ash Center
“There is also a measurable gap in AI adoption between the American right and left. The American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC) has surveyed its members on AI adoption for the past three years and found a 20-percentage-point gap between the two.”
Data
2026 midterms recap: Kalshi traders called 98% of races
Kalshi
“Traders correctly predicted that Democrats would control the House, Senate, and the majority of Governorships before election day, and traders were hours ahead of the networks in predicting the vast majority of races including Senate and House control.”
Fundraising
The Democratic Spam Trap
New York Magazine
“By his tally, some 138,000 people have donated to spam PACs at least 100 times each; their average age is 75. Though they make up less than one percent of all Democratic donors, this tiny cohort of givers has supplied nearly half of the $1.4 billion these PACs have hauled in since 2017.”
Social Media
Did Midterm Election Influencers Sway the 2026 Results?
Riverfront Times
“In a September Morning Consult survey, 26 percent of adults said creator posts had affected whom they voted for, and 56 percent said they’d affected their views on political or social issues.”
Technology
Why AI Chatbots Love Ballotpedia, and What Candidates Should Do About It
Campaign Trend
“Graves also shares that Ballotpedia’s traffic is up 20% over 2024 despite industry fears about zero-click search, and that page views on a race typically run 20 to 30% of the votes eventually cast in it.”
Campaign texts, now powered by AI: How new tech is shaping voter outreach
CBS News
“The most effective approach wasn’t moral reframing, storytelling or deep canvassing. Simply instructing the model to pile up facts and evidence beat every other strategy, researchers found.”
AI chatbots are becoming political advisers. Their answers can mislead voters
NPR
“In data collected in October, 13.9% of chatbot answers to voting-logistics questions were outdated or inaccurate. Errors in 5.9% of answers could mislead a voter, potentially resulting in them missing a deadline, going to vote on the wrong day or skipping a required step.”
How an obscure website became a force in America’s election information machine
Washington Post
“In tests by The Washington Post, ChatGPT cited the Ballot Brief in 22 percent of its answers to questions about the election. Microsoft’s Copilot cited it in 75 percent of answers.”