[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"$f1rm2t8vcrwau5":3,"$f1o2bwh0jug88t":16},[4,7,10,13],{"title":5,"slug":6},"Privacy Policy","privacy-policy",{"title":8,"slug":9},"Terms of Use","terms-of-use",{"title":11,"slug":12},"CCPA Resource","ccpa-resource",{"title":14,"slug":15},"Data Processing Agreement","data-processing-agreement",{"title":17,"slug":18,"image":19,"body":20,"metaTitle":21,"metaDescription":22,"date":23,"updatedAt":24,"category":25,"author":27,"related":30},"Political Advertising and CTV: How Election Demand Is Changing Streaming Advertising","blogpolitical-advertising-ctv","\u002Fstorage\u002Fblog\u002Fposts\u002F202610271111_political-advertising-ctv-election-demand-hero.webp","\u003Cp>Election season used to have a familiar media pattern.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">Turn on local television in a competitive state and the commercial breaks made it obvious. Political advertising arrived quickly, bought heavily, and competed for a limited amount of airtime.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">That pressure has not disappeared.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">It has followed viewers into streaming.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">Connected TV is becoming a significant part of U.S. political advertising, and the 2026 midterm cycle makes the shift hard to miss. AdImpact now projects total political advertising for the cycle at a record $11.6 billion. Broadcast TV remains the largest piece at 48%, but CTV is expected to capture roughly $2.7 billion, or 23% of spending.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">For an advertising channel that played a much smaller political role only a few election cycles ago, that is a serious amount of money.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">And political advertisers are not entering an empty market.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">CTV demand is already growing.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u003Cimg src=\"\u002Fstorage\u002Feditor\u002F20261027506_2026-political-ad-spend-ctv-forecast.webp\" alt=\"TV displaying projected 2026 political ad spend ($11.6B total, $2.7B\u002F23% CTV) with caption 'Streaming Got On The Campaign Media Plan'.\" class=\"mr-auto\">\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u003Cem>U.S. political ad spend projections highlight $2.7B shifting into connected TV streaming channels during election cycles.\u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch3 style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u003Cstrong>Political Money Is Following Television Audiences\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fh3>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">The reason CTV attracts political advertising is not particularly mysterious.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">People still watch television. They increasingly watch it through internet-connected screens.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">Advertisers followed.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">IAB reported that CTV ad spend reached $23.6 billion in 2024, up 16% year over year, and projected another increase to $26.6 billion in 2025. By 2026, IAB expects CTV spending to grow another 13.8%.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">Political demand is therefore arriving in a channel that commercial advertisers already consider a core part of the media mix.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">This matters because election spending is highly concentrated.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">A national consumer brand may advertise throughout the year. Political campaigns operate against immovable dates. Primaries happen when they happen. Election Day cannot be moved because CPMs became uncomfortable.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">That produces a very different demand pattern.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch3 style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u003Cstrong>Election Demand Can Change Local CTV Economics Fast\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fh3>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">National CTV numbers only tell part of the story.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">Political advertising is intensely geographic.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">A Senate race, gubernatorial contest or competitive House district can produce heavy advertising demand in one market while a neighboring market sees far less pressure. That concentration makes election advertising especially important for local CTV inventory.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">AdImpact's 2026 local CTV analysis projects $2.48 billion in political CTV spending for the midterm year in its earlier forecast, up 128% from the 2022 midterms. Its more recent national political-spending forecast has since increased the CTV figure to $2.7 billion.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">The exact number will continue moving as campaigns develop.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">The direction is much harder to dispute.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">CTV has become a major election advertising environment.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">When a large amount of budget enters specific markets over a relatively short period, the effect goes beyond political advertisers. Commercial brands are competing in the same broader attention economy.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">Retailers do not stop advertising because an election is happening. Neither do automotive brands, financial services companies, restaurants or entertainment advertisers.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">Everyone still wants the screen.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch3 style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u003Cstrong>CTV Changes What “Television Advertising” Means During Elections\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fh3>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">Broadcast political advertising has decades of established buying practices behind it.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">CTV adds another layer.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">Streaming inventory can be purchased through different combinations of direct deals, platforms and programmatic infrastructure. The environment also brings digital capabilities around audience selection, frequency management, measurement and reporting.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">That is one reason the movement of political budgets into CTV is important beyond politics itself.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">It puts more pressure on streaming advertising infrastructure.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">Advertisers expect television-scale reach, but they increasingly expect digital-style control as well. They want to understand delivery. They want reliable audience information. They want measurement. They want to know where an impression ran.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">Those expectations are not unique to political advertising.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">Targeting has overtaken content quality as the leading criterion buyers use when making TV\u002Fvideo investment decisions. U.S. digital video spending overall is projected to exceed $80 billion this year, with digital video taking more than 60% of total TV\u002Fvideo advertising spend.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">The screen is still television.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">The buying expectations increasingly look like digital advertising.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u003Cimg src=\"\u002Fstorage\u002Feditor\u002F20261027307_ctv-cpm-election-demand-impression-cost.webp\" alt=\"Side-by-side TV comparison showing $20K budget yielding 2.0M impressions at $10 CPM vs. 1.33M impressions at $15 CPM, captioned 'Same Budget. ~33% Fewer Impressions.\" class=\"mr-auto\">\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u003Cem>Elevated programmatic auction competition during demand surges increases clearing CPMs and reduces delivered impression volume.\u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch3 style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u003Cstrong>More Demand Makes Supply Quality More Important\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fh3>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">High-demand periods expose weak infrastructure surprisingly quickly.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">When inventory is plentiful, inefficiencies can hide. Buyers have alternatives. Pricing is easier to absorb. A questionable supply path may not receive much attention.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">When demand rises sharply, those details become harder to ignore.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">Buyers need to understand what inventory they are accessing, where it comes from and how it is being sold. Publishers and platforms need infrastructure capable of handling increased auction activity without losing transparency.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">This is particularly relevant in CTV because the supply landscape is fragmented across apps, streaming platforms, device ecosystems and intermediaries.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">A television impression is not automatically a premium impression simply because it appeared on a large screen.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">That distinction matters even more when billions of additional advertising dollars are competing for streaming audiences.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch3 style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u003Cstrong>Election Years Also Put Measurement Under Pressure\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fh3>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">Political demand creates another interesting effect: it makes measurement problems more visible.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">CTV promises addressability and accountability that traditional television could not always provide at the same level. But measuring streaming campaigns remains complicated.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">Households use multiple devices. Streaming services have different identity environments. Signal availability varies. Cross-platform reach can be difficult to reconcile cleanly.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">Meanwhile, advertisers increasingly expect outcomes, not just completed video views.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">As digital video budgets have expanded, buyer expectations around performance, measurement and transparency have risen with them.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">That creates a straightforward challenge for the CTV ecosystem.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">More money entering the channel means more scrutiny over what that money actually produces.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">Political advertising adds another large pool of demand to that equation.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch3 style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u003Cstrong>Political CTV Has Its Own Transparency Requirements\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fh3>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">There is another important difference between a standard streaming campaign and political advertising: political communications operate under specific disclosure rules.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">For U.S. federal political advertising, Federal Election Commission rules require disclaimers on covered public communications, including paid communications distributed through websites, digital devices, applications and advertising platforms.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">Internet video has specific requirements as well. When a disclaimer appears within a covered internet video communication, the FEC requires it to remain visible for at least four seconds without requiring the viewer to take another action.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">That sounds like a creative detail.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">For AdTech infrastructure, it is not.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">Political advertising involves questions around advertiser identification, creative compliance, records, platform policies and applicable federal and state requirements. Streaming platforms and technology providers need systems that can distinguish these campaigns and apply the appropriate processes.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">As political CTV spending grows, those workflows move from edge cases toward a more meaningful operational requirement.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u003Cimg src=\"\u002Fstorage\u002Feditor\u002F20261027208_political-demand-premium-ctv-inventory-competitionn-advertising-optimization.webp\" alt=\"3D graphic of limited ad slots with cards labeled Travel, Auto, and Finance floating around, captioned 'Limited Premium CTV Inventory'.\" class=\"mr-auto\">\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u003Cem>Surging political buyer budgets constrain available premium streaming video inventory slots for commercial advertisers.\u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch3 style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u003Cstrong>Election Demand Is Becoming Part of CTV Planning\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fh3>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">There is an easy mistake to make here.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">Treat political advertising as a temporary spike that matters only to political campaigns.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">The market impact is broader.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">The 2026 calendar already contains several major demand events. IAB notes that the Winter Olympics, FIFA World Cup and U.S. midterm elections are contributing to advertising demand across video environments.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">Political spending adds another concentrated layer, particularly in competitive local markets.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">For commercial advertisers, that can mean a different supply environment from one month to the next. For publishers, it creates monetization opportunities but also puts pressure on forecasting and inventory management. For AdTech platforms, it raises the value of transparent supply, reliable delivery data and infrastructure that can handle rapid changes in demand.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">Election Day passes.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">The infrastructure expectations do not.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch3 style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u003Cstrong>From Impressions to Incremental Impact\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fh3>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">CTV's growing political role also raises a familiar measurement question.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">Did the advertising actually create an additional effect, or did the campaign simply reach people who would have taken the same action anyway?\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">That question is bigger than political advertising. It sits at the center of performance measurement across digital media.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">For a deeper look at how advertisers separate correlation from real advertising impact, read our previous article, \u003Cstrong>“What Is Incrementality in Advertising? And Why Does It Matter?”\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">It is especially relevant as CTV budgets grow and advertisers demand stronger evidence of what those investments actually deliver.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch3 style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u003Cstrong>CTV Is Becoming Core Advertising Infrastructure\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fh3>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">Political advertising did not create the shift toward streaming.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">It is accelerating it.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">The 2026 election cycle shows how quickly CTV has moved from an emerging extension of television buying to a significant destination for major advertising budgets. Political CTV spending is now measured in billions, while the overall CTV market continues posting double-digit growth.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">That combination changes the market.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">Inventory becomes more competitive. Local demand becomes less predictable. Measurement matters more. Supply transparency becomes harder to treat as an optional extra.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">For AdTech companies, the takeaway is less about politics than infrastructure.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">The streaming advertising stack has to be ready for demand that can arrive quickly, concentrate heavily in particular markets, and disappear just as fast.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">Screencore builds programmatic infrastructure for an advertising market where CTV, video and data-driven buying increasingly overlap. From transparent supply connections to scalable programmatic execution, we help advertising businesses build technology that can perform when demand gets complicated.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u003Cstrong>Planning your next CTV or programmatic advertising project?\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u003Ca target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fscreencore.io\u002Fcontact\">\u003Cstrong>\u003Cu>Talk to the Screencore team\u003C\u002Fu>\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fa> and see how the right infrastructure can support it. \u003C\u002Fp>","Political Advertising and CTV: What’s Changing? | Screencore","Political advertising is bringing billions into CTV. See how election demand affects streaming inventory, pricing, measurement, and the wider advertising market.","2026-10-28T22:00:00.000Z","2026-10-28T12:37:46.704Z",{"title":26},"Advertising",{"name":28,"slug":29},"Jess Okan","jess-okan",[31,36,41],{"slug":32,"title":33,"date":34,"category":35},"what-is-incrementality-in-advertising","What Is Incrementality in Advertising? And Why Does It Matter?","2026-10-20T21:00:00.000Z",{"title":26},{"slug":37,"title":38,"date":39,"category":40},"political-advertising-programmatic-auction-cpm","How Political Advertising Changes the Programmatic Auction","2026-10-14T21:00:00.000Z",{"title":26},{"slug":42,"title":43,"date":44,"category":45},"screencore-ssp-launch","Introducing Screencore SSP for Smarter Publisher Monetization","2026-10-07T21:00:00.000Z",{"title":26}]