CTV vs Broadcast TV for Political Campaigns: Where Your Ad Dollars Actually Move Voters in 2026
Broadcast still has a role. But the math has changed — and the campaigns moving voters in 2026 are the ones that built their plan on Connected TV first.
The Question Every Campaign Manager Is Asking
Every cycle, the question gets sharper: how much of the TV budget should be Connected TV and how much should be traditional broadcast? Five years ago the answer was 'mostly broadcast, with a digital layer.' Three years ago it was 'a meaningful CTV line item alongside the broadcast plan.' Today, for most campaigns in most districts, the answer is 'CTV-first, with surgical broadcast for the reach you cannot get any other way.' This piece walks through the actual numbers — reach, cost per persuadable voter, targeting precision, measurement, and persuasion lift — and lays out a framework for how to allocate between CTV and broadcast for a modern campaign.
Cord-Cutting Has Changed the Reach Math
The single biggest reason CTV has moved from optional to essential is cord-cutting. In the Phoenix DMA, approximately 45% of households no longer subscribe to traditional cable or satellite. Nationally the number is similar and growing 3-5 percentage points per year. This means a broadcast-only plan is now reaching, at most, 55% of the available TV audience in most markets — and the 45% it is missing skews younger, more urban, more independent, and more persuadable. The voters most likely to decide a competitive race are disproportionately the voters broadcast cannot reach. The fix is not to abandon broadcast — broadcast still has unique reach against older, high-propensity voters and during live news and sports events — but to recognize that any plan claiming to reach 'the voters of district X' through broadcast alone is reaching, at best, half of them.
Cost Per Persuadable Voter: The Only KPI That Matters
Campaigns waste enormous amounts of money optimizing for cost-per-thousand (CPM) when the metric that actually matters is cost per persuadable voter reached at intended frequency. Broadcast CPMs in Phoenix during election season range from $25-80 depending on daypart and program, but the audience is the entire DMA — which includes hundreds of thousands of voters who are not in your district, not registered, not eligible, or hardened opponents. The effective cost per persuadable voter is often 5-10× the headline CPM. CTV CPMs in Phoenix during election season range from $25-60, but the audience is voter-file matched. You are paying for impressions delivered to identifiable voters in your persuasion universe. The effective cost per persuadable voter is often 2-4× the headline CPM — a fraction of what broadcast costs to reach the same person. For most contested races, the CTV cost per persuadable voter is 40-70% lower than broadcast for equivalent frequency and creative quality.
Targeting Precision: Voter File vs DMA
The targeting gap between CTV and broadcast is enormous and continues to widen. Broadcast targeting is DMA-level. You are buying the entire Phoenix media market — Maricopa County plus parts of Pinal, Yavapai, Gila, La Paz, and beyond. If your race is a Maricopa-only legislative district, you are paying for impressions in counties where your race does not exist. CTV targeting is voter-file matched at the individual voter level. You are reaching the actual voters in your district, segmented by partisanship, propensity, and persuasion model. The targeting waste in broadcast for sub-DMA races is one of the most expensive problems in political media planning, and one of the easiest to solve by shifting budget to CTV.
Where Broadcast Still Wins
Broadcast still has clear use cases in a modern campaign. Local news viewership remains stronger than CTV for older, high-propensity voters — the 60+ demographic that turns out at 75-85% in general elections. Live sports inventory (NFL, NBA, college football in Arizona's media markets) reaches massive simultaneous audiences with high attention. Late-cycle reach against the broadest possible audience benefits from broadcast's saturation pricing — you can buy enormous gross rating points in the final 72 hours of a race for less than equivalent CTV impressions. Spanish-language broadcast (Univision, Telemundo) still over-indexes for reach against older Hispanic voters in Arizona, though CTV equivalents are catching up quickly. The rule of thumb: use broadcast for the audiences and moments where its unique reach and attention are worth the targeting waste, not as the default plan with a CTV bolt-on.
Creative: The Format Matters More Than the Channel
Running the same :30 broadcast spot across CTV without adapting the creative is one of the most common mistakes in modern political media. CTV viewers are more attentive than broadcast viewers — they have actively chosen to stream content — but they are also less tolerant of broadcast-style pacing, slow openings, and content that does not pay off the first five seconds. Effective CTV creative for political campaigns: opens with the strongest line in the first 3 seconds, includes on-screen text and captions for sound-off viewing (substantial CTV viewership happens in mixed-attention environments), is paced tighter than equivalent broadcast spots, and includes a clear single call to action. The best campaigns produce platform-specific cuts — :60s and :30s for broadcast and premium CTV inventory, :15s and :06 bumpers for YouTube and rapid response — rather than running a single asset across every placement.
Measurement: What Each Channel Can Actually Prove
Broadcast measurement remains stuck in the gross rating point and Nielsen panel era. You can estimate reach and frequency but you cannot prove that any specific voter saw your spot. CTV measurement is substantially more rigorous. Voter file match-back shows exactly which voters saw which creative, at what frequency, on which platforms. Brand lift studies (free from YouTube for campaigns spending over $5K in a 10-day window, available paid from Nielsen / Lucid / others for CTV inventory) measure actual persuasion lift among the targeted audience. Cross-screen attribution connects CTV exposure to downstream search behavior, site visits, and donation conversion. The measurement gap is large enough that it should change how the post-campaign analysis is done. CTV programs can be evaluated on persuasion lift and turnout impact directly. Broadcast programs are evaluated mostly on reach assumptions and post-hoc rationalization.
An Allocation Framework for 2026 Campaigns
There is no single correct allocation between CTV and broadcast — the right mix depends on the race, the district, the demographics, and the budget. A useful starting framework: for federal and statewide races with adequate budget, allocate 50-65% of total video budget to CTV, 25-40% to broadcast, and 10-20% to YouTube. For sub-DMA legislative and municipal races where broadcast targeting waste is severe, allocate 60-75% to CTV, 15-25% to YouTube, and only the broadcast inventory that delivers unique reach (typically local news and Spanish-language). For low-budget races under $250K total digital, often skip broadcast entirely in favor of CTV plus YouTube plus Meta — broadcast's minimum effective budget for meaningful reach is often higher than the available total. For ballot initiatives and persuasion-heavy campaigns, weight more heavily to CTV and YouTube where targeting precision matters most. For base turnout and GOTV-heavy campaigns, weight more heavily to CTV and digital where frequency and measurement matter most.
The Hidden Cost of Getting This Wrong
The campaigns that miss this allocation question do not lose by a clean visible margin. They lose by a couple of points in a close race because the persuadable voters who would have moved with adequate frequency on CTV never reached intended frequency. Or they win by a smaller margin than they should have and spend the next cycle wondering whether budget was wasted. The opportunity cost of allocating too heavily to broadcast when CTV would have reached the persuasion universe more efficiently is not visible in the ad reports — it is visible in the election results, two years after the decisions were made. The campaigns that take CTV-first seriously in 2026 will look back in 2028 and see it as the obvious decision. The ones that did not will be making the same mistake again.
Talk to Position One About Your Race
Position One builds digital programs for political campaigns from federal races down to municipal. We have ranked #1 in-state and #21 nationally for political impression share. We integrate voter-file data with CTV, YouTube, Meta, and Google. We produce platform-native creative on rapid timelines. We measure persuasion lift and turnout impact, not vanity metrics. If you are planning a 2026 race and want a credible second opinion on your TV and digital allocation, request a confidential strategy call. We will walk through your district, your budget, and the allocation that gives you the best chance of winning.