April Ad Data Shows Continued Spending Disparity Between Parties on Immigration

The Immigration Hub commissioned AdImpact to track 2024 political advertising featuring immigration messaging, including data on spending, placement, viewership, and immigration keywords employed by candidates, political action committees, and other groups, across eleven battleground states (AZ, FL, GA, MI, NC, NV, PA, OH, TX, VA, WI) and Montana. In April 2024, Republican and right-wing candidates and groups continued to outspend Democrats on immigration ads, spending over $9 million on television broadcast ads in nine battleground states and Montana (the amount does not reflect online or other paid communications, such as mailers and text messages).

• From January 2024 to April 2024, GOP and Democratic candidates, PACS, and other groups have spent $48,568,131 on immigration-focused television ads.
• In April of 2024, GOP candidates, PACs, and other groups spent $8,198,400  million to fund 40 anti-immigrant TV ads across federal, state, and down-ballot races in nine battleground states (AZ, GA, NC, NV, OH, PA, TX, VA, WI) and Montana.
• The right-wing ads aired 19,309 times in critical battleground states and were viewed over 300 million times.
• The top buzzwords employed in the ads were “border” (38 mentions),  “crime” (15 mentions), and “wall” (5 mentions).
• Across the twelve battleground states in the analysis, Democratic candidates and groups spent $876,660 on 2 ads that aired 4,756 times in Montana and Nevada. The ads garnered over 37 million views. 
• Across party lines, the states that saw the highest proportion of immigration-related ads were Montana (8 ads, 43%), North Carolina (8 ads, 40%), Virginia (4 ads, 40%), Texas (12 ads, 32%)
• In Arizona and Nevada, where immigration is a top issue for voters, Republican candidates and right-wing groups have spent $179,784 (AZ) and $13,711 (NV), respectively, while Democrats have spent $0 (AZ) and $623,530 (NV).

While Republican ad spending in April ($8,198,400) is down 49% from March ($16,186,069), they continue to outspend Democrats on the issue by large margins – mirroring an established trend from the last three months. In the first quarter of 2024, Republican and right-wing candidates spent over $38 million on immigration-related television broadcast ads in six battleground states as compared to Democrats’ $718,483. It’s clear that Democrats will need to pursue an aggressive ad strategy in the coming weeks in order to compete with right-wing investments, as POLITICO recently reported that One Nation, a right-wing group supported by major GOP leaders and the top GOP super PAC, is investing $70 million more into ad campaigns focused on immigration and cost of living, targeting five Senate battleground states (Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Montana, Wisconsin and Nevada).

Methodology: AdImpact conducted this research through a team of analysts who watch and label each ad with an issue tag based on its content. After filtering down the ads with the “Immigration” issue tag to only those aired by advertisers in the specified states and races, the analysts used a keyword search of each transcript to determine the total number of ads each term appeared in.  (Note: To view any of the ads mentioned in this report, please contact claudia@theimmigrationhub.org.)