July Ad Data Shows GOP Nearly Doubles Anti-Immigrant Ad Spend

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 July 2024, Republican and right-wing candidates and groups continued to outspend Democrats on immigration television ads, spending over $37 million in eleven battleground states and Montana (the amount does not reflect online or other paid communications, such as mailers and text messages). To date, Republican and right-wing entities have spent over $132 million on anti-immigrant TV ads across twelve states critical to the presidential and congressional elections.

• From January 2024 to July 2024, Republican and Democratic candidates, PACS, and other groups have spent $132,903,247 on immigration-focused television ads. Only $15,078,558, or 11%, was spent by Democratic candidates or groups. The remaining 89%, or $117,824,689, was spent on anti-immigrant TV ads by the GOP and right-wing groups.
• In July of 2024, GOP candidates, PACs, and other groups spent $37,458,633 to fund 114 anti-immigrant TV ads across federal, state, and down-ballot races in eleven battleground states (AZ, FL, GA, MI, NC, NV, OH, PA, TX, VA, WI) and Montana.
• The right-wing ads aired 49,821 times in critical battleground states and were viewed over 1.3 billion times.
• “Border” remained the top buzzword employed in the ads, with 77 mentions, followed by  “crime” (17 mentions), “wall” (10 mentions), “fentanyl” (5 mentions), and “drugs” (5 mentions).
• Across the 12 states in the analysis, Democratic candidates and groups spent $6,179,978 on 13 ads that aired a total of 9,392 times. Collectively, the ads garnered over 303 million views in Arizona, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin. 
• Across party lines, the states that saw the highest proportion of immigration-related ads were Texas (6 ads, 46.15%), Ohio (12 ads, 37.5%), Arizona (28 ads, 36.36%), and Pennsylvania (18 ads, 23.68%). 
• In Arizona and Nevada, where immigration is a top issue for voters, Republican candidates and right-wing groups spent $5,320,301 and $1,447,916 in July, respectively, while Democrats only spent $977,939 in Arizona and $562,990 in Nevada.

Democrats increased their immigration-focused television ad spend by 5% in July to $6.2 million, while the GOP and other conservative groups increased their anti-immigration TV ad spend to $37,458,633 in July, a 120% increase from June and their highest monthly spend in 2024. Still, polls show Harris trimming the Democratic deficit on immigration and gaining support among voters.

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.)