Q3 2024 Ad Data Confirms Massive GOP Spending on Immigration and Increasing Investments From Democrats

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 third quarter of 2024, Republican and right-wing candidates and groups outspent Democrats on immigration ads, spending nearly $243.6 million on television broadcast ads in 11 battleground states and Montana (the amount does not reflect online or other paid communications, such as mailers and text messages).

• From January 2024 to September 2024, Republican and Democratic candidates, PACS, and other groups have spent a combined $389,516,524 on immigration-focused television ads. Only $65,535,426, or 17%, was spent by Democratic candidates or groups. The remaining 83%, or $323,981,098, was spent on anti-immigrant TV ads by the GOP and right-wing groups.

• In the third quarter of 2024, GOP candidates, PACs, and other groups spent nearly $243.6 million to fund 450 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 254,580 times in critical battleground states and were viewed over 6.5 billion times.
• The top buzzwords employed in the ads were “border” (322 mentions),  “crime” (70 mentions), “wall” (38 mentions), and “fentanyl” (29 mentions).
• Across the twelve states in the analysis, Democratic candidates and groups spent $56,636,846 on 112 ads that aired 84,390 times. The ads garnered over 2.1 billion views.
• The states with the highest share of immigration ads across party lines were Texas (48 ads, 37%), Arizona (89 ads, 34%), and Ohio (53 ads, 27%).
• In Arizona and Nevada, where immigration is a top issue for voters, Republican candidates and right-wing groups have spent $25,481,321 (AZ) and $13,008,249 (NV), while Democrats have spent $13,060,995 (AZ) and $2,732,793 (NV) in quarter three.
• According to AdImpact’s Advocacy & Government Election Advertisements tool, in Montana, GOP candidates have spent a total of $11,801,121 on 24 anti-immigrant TV ads which have aired a combined total of 28,187 times and garnered 511 million viewers in quarter three. Senate Democratic candidate John Tester and Democratically-aligned groups spent a total of $700,973 on 8 immigration related TV ads that aired 63 and garnered nearly 126 million viewers.

As of October 14, including future reservations, the 2024 cycle officially surpassed $9 billion in total ad spending. With Democrats increasing their immigration-related ad spending each month since January 2024 and GOP advertisers attempting to maximize their remaining advertising dollars, October is likely to balloon this total even further. OpenSecrets recently projected that 2024’s federal election cycle will be the most expensive in American history, with an estimated $15.9 billion to be spent in ads.

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.)