The big news this week is the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, but the political advertising around the trial is minimal. However, it is probably no surprise that the first impeachment of 2020 produced a gold mine of advertising messaging. Read our retrospective of political ad insights from the first impeachment.

Political Spending Recap

We seem to have reached the point of perpetual political campaigning. 2021 Gubernatorial races are getting underway, the DCCC is already on air, and issue groups continue to spend on various initiatives. In the last two weeks alone there were 68 unique political ads that aired.

On to the toplines …

In the last two weeks, there was $7.1M in political spending by 107 advertisers.

The highest spending advertisers were the American Petroleum Institute, The Lincoln Project, and Tax March.

American Petroleum Institute spent a total of $836K and had four ads on air in the last two weeks. This ad went up on air in Washington, D.C. on February 8 and has aired 33 times. The messaging focuses on what natural gas and oil companies are doing to both reduce emissions and “keep the lights on.”

The Lincoln Project had five ads on air in the last two weeks and spent $815K. The group has two ads airing today, including this one that just went up in Washington, D.C. this morning.

Tax March has four ads on air targeting Ron Johnson, Rob Portman, Adam Kinzinger, and Marianette Miller-Meeks over Covid-19 relief. Tax March has spent $544K so far. Watch one of the ads here.

The DCCC also started targeting key Republicans in the last two weeks. The ads focus on QAnon and the attack on the Capitol. This ad targets Kevin McCarthy and has aired 253 times:

Washington D.C. was the top market with $2.7M in spending, followed by New York, New York at $320K.

Covid-19 isn’t going anywhere. In the last two weeks, 16 ads aired on TV that referenced the Coronavirus. These are the top two ads :

• 627 airings from the New Jersey Department of Health, “Stop the Spread“
• 304 airings from CDC Foundation, “Wear a Mask“

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