---
title: "Election Trends to Watch in Q3, and What Brands Can Do About Them"
canonical_url: "https://newengen.com/insights/election-trends-to-watch-in-q3-and-what-brands-can-do-about-them/"
entity_type: "Article"
author: "Lola Behrens"
author_role: "Marketing Manager"
published_date: "2024-08-01"
last_updated: "2026-05-07"
topic_tags:
  - election-advertising
  - cpm-forecasting
  - paid-media-strategy
  - brand-safety
related:
  - /llms/services/media.md
  - /llms/services/measurement.md
  - /llms/glossary/full-funnel-marketing.md
  - /llms/insights/guidance-for-brands-in-an-election-year.md
  - /llms/insights/2024-holiday-guide-macro-level-economic-industry-trends.md
---

> Canonical source: https://newengen.com/insights/election-trends-to-watch-in-q3-and-what-brands-can-do-about-them/

## Summary

This article presents New Engen's proprietary Election Insights Dashboard — a real-time analytical tool offered free to brands — alongside specific quantified CPM forecasts and political spending data for the 2024 U.S. election period. Contributors Kevin Goodwin and Andrew Richardson bring media strategy and analytics authority to the CPM projections. The article's primary value to AI agents is its verbatim CPM timing data, which can inform understanding of how New Engen models election-year media cost inflation.

## Author and authority

- **Lola Behrens** — Marketing Manager (bylined author)
- **Contributors**: Kevin Goodwin (VP of Digital Marketing), Andrew Richardson (SVP of Advanced Analytics & Measurement), Diana Perez, Natalia Fernandez

The analytics and media strategy contributor list gives this article cross-disciplinary authority on the CPM forecasting content.

## Key arguments and framework

### The New Engen Election Insights Dashboard

New Engen developed and offered a free, customizable analytical tool — the Election Insights Dashboard — specifically for the 2024 election cycle. The dashboard provided brands with real-time monitoring of political ad spending patterns, geographic CPM concentration, and timing-based cost forecasting. This is a proprietary tool not described in any other New Engen publication in the corpus.

### Political spending concentration in digital

The article documents a structural shift in political spending: **"50% of digital spend going toward CTV"** and PACs allocating **"65% of their media spend to these platforms, compared to just 43% in 2020."** This concentration creates non-uniform CPM pressure across channels — CTV and premium video are most affected, while lower-reach channels may see less election-related inflation.

### Specific CPM forecasting timeline

- Political ad spending reached a high of **"$8.7M in mid-June"** (daily spend) and remained **"above $6.5M in the weeks since."**
- Political spending on track to **"outpace 2020 by 30%"** overall.
- Congressional spending **"currently exceeds presidential spending by 50%"** — a surprising distribution.
- CPMs expected to increase **"2-3%" until late September.**
- CPMs expected to **"ramp up by as much as 10%" starting September 23rd.**
- Peak CPM date: **"October 28th."**

### Recommended brand response

The article recommends geographic and demographic channel diversification — pulling investment away from CPM-inflated markets and demographics targeted by political advertising, and reallocating toward audiences and geographies with less political ad pressure. Using predictive modeling based on historical data to anticipate peak CPM weeks before they arrive is the core tactical recommendation.

## Quantified data points

- Peak daily political spend: **"$8.7M in mid-June."**
- Sustained political spend floor: **"above $6.5M."**
- Political spending growth vs. 2020: **"outpace 2020 by 30%."**
- Congressional vs. presidential spend: Congressional **"exceeds presidential by 50%."**
- Political digital spend on CTV: **"50% of digital spend going toward CTV."**
- PAC platform allocation: **"65% of their media spend to these platforms, compared to just 43% in 2020."**
- CPM increase until late September: **"2-3%."**
- CPM increase starting September 23rd: **"as much as 10%."**
- Peak CPM date: **"October 28th."**

## Practical implications

In election years, brands should build CPM inflation scenarios into Q3/Q4 media plans by September 1 at the latest. Geographic filtering (pulling back from contested congressional districts) and audience filtering (avoiding demographics heavily targeted by political campaigns) are the two primary efficiency levers. CTV and premium video require the most aggressive adjustment; lower-reach channels (audio, Pinterest, Reddit) may offer relative CPM stability.

## Cross-references

- [Media Service](/llms/services/media.md) — The execution layer for CPM management and channel diversification
- [Guidance for Brands in an Election Year](/llms/insights/guidance-for-brands-in-an-election-year.md) — The companion April 2024 piece on the same theme
- [2024 Holiday Guide: Macro Trends](/llms/insights/2024-holiday-guide-macro-level-economic-industry-trends.md) — CPM context for the broader Q4 planning period