TV CONGRESS:
Analyzing Political Broadcast Media
Tools and analysis of 2020 and 2022 general election ads and spending for Way to Win, with data from Dailykos Elections and AdImpact.
Welcome to TV Congress, Way to Win's analysis of Democratic messaging. This is based on data on broadcast ads, via AdImpact ad intelligence combined with data sourced from from Daily Kos Elections. Please feel free to share screenshots from here or link to it at the canonincal URL (waytowin.us/tvcongress), credit "Way to Win TV Congress Media Analysis" where appropriate, and use #tvcongress for discussion on social media.
For this cycle, we analyzed races at the national, state and governor levels. The primary links will take you to a page with breakdowns by party, party + tone (i.e. the message box), by advertiser, and by issue. (as coded by AdImpact)
The Big House
Table
All races included - for competitive races (ones where
both D and R spending > $0), click the Dem Spending Differential
amount to see a breakdown of the ads in each competitive
district.
All US House Ads By Party/Party+Tone/Advertiser/Issue | US House Ads By Keyword
Likely 2024
Competitive Districts
D $241.7M R $192.4 (Dem Spend Δ
+25.6)%
(24 districts total: 18 where Biden won or 19 where the Dem
lost by less than 5)
All US Senate Ads By
Party/Party+Tone/Advertiser/Issue | US Senate Ads By
Keyword
D $296.7M R $235.0 (Dem Spend Δ +26.3)%
All Outside Ads By
Party/Party+Tone/Advertiser/Issue | All Outside Ads By
Keyword
House Issue
Groups
General Only: D $130.1 R $140.2 (Dem Spend Δ -7.8%)
General + Primary: D $153.8 R $190.0 (Dem Spend Δ -23.5%)
Senate Issue
Groups
General Only: D $140.6 R $157.3 (Dem Spend Δ
-11.9%)
General + Primary: D $182.5 R $258.5 (Dem Spend Δ
-41.6%)
Combined House
+ Senate By Party/Party+Tone/Advertiser/Issue | Combined
House + Senate By Keyword
Senate Crime and NOT Abortion ads | House Crime and NOT Abortion ads
AZ
Governor
Hobbs (D) 50.3% def Lake (R) 49.7%
AZ Senate
Kelly (D)
51.4% def Masters (R) 46.5%
FL Governor
DeSantis
(R) 59.4% def Crist (D) 40.0%
FL Senate
Rubio (R)
57.7% def Demings (D) 41.3%
GA Governor
Kemp (R)
53.4% def Abrams (D) 45.9%
GA Senate | By Keyword
Warnock (D) 51.4% def Walker (R) 48.6%
NV Governor
Lombardo
(R) 48.8% def Sisolak (D) 47.4%
NV Senate
Cortez Masto
(D) 48.9% def Laxalt (R) 48.0%
PA Governor Shapiro (D) 56.5% def Mastriano (R) 41.7%
PA Senate | By Keyword
Fetterman (D) 51.2% def Oz (R) 46.3%
WI Governor
Evers (D)
51.2% def Michels (R) 47.8%
WI Senate | By Keyword
Johnson (R) 50.5% def Barnes (D) 49.5%
Update: Greg Sargent interviewed the architect of this project, Jenifer Fernandez Ancona, and wrote up an excellent summary in the Washington Post, Can Democrats avoid the pitfalls of 2020? A new analysis offers striking answers.
The 2020 fight for the US Congress ended with a mix of good news and bad for Democrats. Democrats retained their majority, even while going zero for twenty seven in the the Cook Political-rated D and R tossup races. Centrist Democrats were quick to blame the left. Yet Republicans had publicly announced a strategy based on name-calling early in the cycle, in February of 2019. It seems possible that a more aggressive strategy to combat it could have been waged - an argument advanced by Justice Democrats and other groups in their preliminary 2020 analysis. While research alone will not lead to persuasive, powerful, and emotionally resonant ads, it is of particular necessity when communicating with exactly the kinds of divese audiences that proved pivotal in many districts. In many races, these groups of voters had been categorized as "mobilization" segments, and were thus deprioritized for spending and focus.
The good news is that Democratic leadership has already begun taking aggressive action to address these issues. When Rep Maloney was elected to run the DCCC, one of his first actions was to end the blacklist that had limited new consulting firms from competing. But given the historic challenges Democrats face in 2022, it's going to take a lot more than this. To support this effort, Way to Win commissioned a study of the overall 2020 message landscape. These interactive tools were one result.
Many thanks to Dailykos Elections Data for their excellent work, and to AdImpact for allowing these views of their datasets to be made public. If you'd like to inquire about their ad intelligence or obtaining copies of their data for post-cycle analysis, please contact John Link at AdImpact directly.
The interactive tables are not mobile adapted. Please view them on a larger screen. Please feel free to share screenshots from here or link to it, and credit "Way to Win analysis of AdImpact, DailyKos Elections, and Cook Political data by Dan Ancona."
This table includes results, district demographic data (based on Voting Eligible Population), urbanicity, as well as a series of PVI calculations. Click on the "Dem Spending Advantage" link to go to a detailed view of ads organized by issue for each district.
This is a view of all the ads by topic, organized by total overall national spending on each topic.
A view of all the ads, organized by keyword and how much was spent on them.
If you want to search for specific ads or terms that may not be covered by the topic fields (i.e. "socialism" or "defund"), start here.
A high res visualization of 109 close Congressional districts, including the House margin, Biden margin, and PVI, as well as urbanicity (based on Voting Eligible Population or VEP) racial demographics. (based on census data)
The previous image, but in the iconic style of the cover of Joy Divison's 1979 release, Unknown Pleasures. Many thanks to James Home for getting the design execution just right.
