$6.7 billion expected to be spent in 2020 campaign despite coronavirus: report

Roughly $6.7 billion is expected to be spent in the 2019-2020 campaign cycle, despite financial fallout over the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new report. 

The projection encompasses all races including the presidential general election and down-ballot races.  

The findings, which were released by Advertising Analytics and obtained via email by The Hill, marked a 12 percent increase over the firm’s original 2019 projection. 

Additionally, the report projected that $4.9 billion would be spent on broadcast television, cable and radio ads, as well as $1.8 billion spending on digital platforms, like Facebook and Google.

A total of $2.19 billion has been spent so far this cycle, over $1 million more than what was spent at this point in the 2016 and 2018 cycles. 

While former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s short-lived presidential bid made up for a large share of the total spending, without Bloomberg’s candidacy, the $1.58 billion spent is still almost twice as much of any other past cycle. 

The report comes as millions of Americans have taken pay cuts or filed for unemployment. The economic crisis raised questions over whether political donations would plummet. 

On the presidential election front, Advertising Analytics’s projection shot up from $1.8 billion to $2.2 billion. The firm said that this is in part due to all-time-high spending by the campaigns. 

Meanwhile, in the states, both the Florida and North Carolina media markets are slated to bring in $100 million in revenue. Florida will likely play a deciding role in the presidential race, while Republicans and Democrats will battle it out for control of one of its Senate races. 

The report also found that the media markets in Philadelphia, Phoenix and Atlanta will each see over $150 million in revenue. Detroit’s media market is likely to see $146 million in revenue, according to the report. Arizona, Michigan, and Pennsylvania are also likely to play deciding roles in the presidential election.

Georgia and Arizona will both go through contested Senate races in the fall. 

The group also projected that $1 billion would be spent in Senate races, while projections for House and gubernatorial races remained unchanged at $1 billion and $200 million, respectively.