Q2 Electoral Ad Spending 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 the second quarter of 2024, Republican and right-wing candidates and groups outspent Democrats on immigration ads, spending nearly $41 million on television broadcast ads in six battleground states (the amount does not reflect online or other paid communications, such as mailers and text messages).

• From January 2024 to June 2024, Republican and Democratic candidates, PACS, and other groups have spent $89,264,634 on immigration-focused television ads. Only $8,898,580, or 10%, was spent by Democratic candidates or groups. The remaining 90%, or $80,366,054, was spent on anti-immigrant TV ads by the GOP and right-wing groups.
• In the second quarter of 2024, GOP candidates, PACs, and other groups spent nearly $41 million to fund 196 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 over 92,000 times in critical battleground states and were viewed over 1.6 billion times.
• The top buzzwords employed in the ads were “border” (181 mentions), “crime” (58 mentions), “wall” (18 mentions), and “fentanyl” (11 mentions).
• Across the twelve states in the analysis, Democratic candidates and groups spent $8,896,046 on 17 ads that aired 20,776 times. The ads garnered over 296 million views.
• The states with the highest share of immigration ads across party lines were Virginia (31 ads, 39%), Montana (33 ads, 31%), and Texas (49 ads, 29%).
• In Arizona and Nevada, where immigration is a top issue for voters, Republican candidates and right-wing groups have spent $2,170,635 (AZ) and $2,441,748 (NV), while Democrats have spent $142,845 (AZ) and $1,048,332 (NV).
• According to AdImpactʼs Advocacy & Government Election Advertisements tool, in Montana, GOP candidates have spent a total of $6,916,116 on anti-immigrant TV ads which have aired a combined total of 24,461 times and garnered 64 million viewers. Senate Democratic candidate John Tester and Democratically-aligned groups spent a total of $1,725,069 on TV ads that aired 10,860 and garnered nearly 25 million viewers.

AdImpact projects that 2024 will be the most expensive election cycle in American history, with an estimated $10.7 billion in advertising dollars. This analysis of TV ad spending during the second quarter of 2024 demonstrates that Republican candidates and right-wing groups continue to weaponize immigrants in their attacks against Democrats. They continue to outspend Democrats on the issue while blocking progress on immigration reform.

Ceding the issue to Republicans and failing to advertise on immigration is a political misstep. As immigration continues to be a top issue for voters heading into the November elections, recent Immigration Hub polling shows that President Biden and Democrats have a ripe opportunity to move voters on the issue by socializing their pivotal immigration accomplishments. Most importantly, by delivering their messaging to the voters via paid communications that uplis a balanced approach to immigration and reiterates the threat that Trump and Republican policies (such as family separation and mass deportation) pose to American working families, including immigrant workers, Biden and Democrats can regain trust among voters and mobilize them to the ballot box.

Methodology: AdImpact conducted this research through a team of analysts who watch and label each ad with an issue tag based on its content. Aer 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.)