August Ad Data Shows Both Parties Reach Highest Monthly Spend 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 August 2024, Republican and right-wing candidates and groups continued to outspend Democrats on immigration television ads, spending over $106 million in eleven battleground states and Montana. This month, both parties reached their highest monthly spend on immigration-related TV advertisements in 2024 (the amount does not reflect online or other paid communications, such as mailers and text messages).

• From January 2024 to August 2024, Republican and Democratic candidates, PACS, and other groups have spent $263,893,664 on immigration-focused television ads. Only $39,698,594, or 15%, was spent by Democratic candidates or groups. The remaining 85%, or $224,195,070, was spent on anti-immigrant TV ads by the GOP and right-wing groups.
• In August of 2024, GOP candidates, PACs, and other groups spent $106,370,381 to fund 156 anti-immigrant TV ads across federal, state, and down-ballot races in eleven battleground states (AZ, FL, GA, MI, NC, NV, PA, OH, TX, VA, WI) and Montana.
• The right-wing ads aired 113,189 times in critical battleground states and were viewed over 3 billion times.
• “Border” (108 mentions) remained the top buzzword employed in the ads, followed by  “crime” (36), “wall” (22), “drugs” (19),  “fentanyl” (14), and “crisis” (5).
• Across the 12 states in the analysis, Democratic candidates and groups spent $24,620,036 on 45 ads that aired a total of 42,591 times. Collectively, the ads garnered over 1 billion views. 
• Across party lines, the states that saw the highest proportion of immigration-related ads were Texas (14 ads, 54%), Arizona (23 ads, 40%), Ohio (14 ads, 33%), and Wisconsin (28 ads, 29%). 
• In Arizona and Nevada, where immigration is a top issue for voters, Republican candidates and right-wing groups spent $8,132,710 and $10,439,855 in August, respectively, while Democrats only spent $3,202,687 in Arizona and $1,098,908 in Nevada.

Since Biden’s withdrawal from the Presidential race, 74% of GOP ads have focused on immigration-related attacks against Harris and Democrats. Accordingly, Democrats increased their immigration-focused television ad spend by almost 300% in August to nearly $24.6 million (up from $6.1 million in July), but it was no match for the GOP’s own investment surge. GOP and other conservative groups increased their anti-immigration TV ad spend to $106,370,381 in August, a 184% increase from July ($37 million). Despite the disparity in investments, Democrats’ surge in ad spending on immigration is proving fruitful with recent polling showing Harris closing the trust gap between herself and Trump on the issue. 

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.)