Black Voters Helped Power Midterm Upsets. Where Did the Ad Dollars Go? Watch part 2 of the post-election special
Updated: 16 hours ago
Reporting across the South links Black voters to major victories, while ad dollars spent in the 2026 midterm elections hit record highs
By Black Headline News
Black voters helped power consequential Democratic victories across the South in the 2026 midterm elections, including Shomari Figures’ reelection in Alabama, Don Davis’ reelection in North Carolina and Keisha Lance Bottoms’ historic gubernatorial victory in Georgia, according to the Associated Press. South Carolina reporting and preliminary Georgia participation records add evidence of strong Black turnout, although a final nationwide Black turnout rate is in complete.
The election also drew an enormous advertising investment: AdImpact’s Election Day Insights Center reported $11.87 billion in political advertising spending in its November 2 snapshot. The figure is a dated tracking total, not a verified final accounting of every election advertisement or payment to a news publisher.
A turnout story with tangible consequences
In South Carolina, Black voters cast 503,177 ballots by the close of polls on November 3, compared with 542,237 in the 2024 presidential election, Grenier reported, citing the South Carolina Election Commission. The report described the decline as about 7 percent, compared with a 23 percent drop in White ballots and a 20 percent drop overall.
The comparison with the previous midterm was even more striking. The state’s 2022 data grouped voters as White or non-White, with 390,498 ballots in the latter category. The report said Black ballots alone in 2026 exceeded the entire 2022 non-White total by nearly 29 percent. Because the categories differ, that is not a like-for-like measure of growth in Black turnout.
Grenier linked the stronger participation to narrow Democratic victories, including Nancy Lacore’s upset in the 1st Congressional District and Joe Madge’s defeat of state House Majority Leader Micah Caskey by 107 votes. The report also described Annie Andrews’ U.S. Senate victory as a shock to South Carolina politics.
Activists and political operatives interviewed for the story pointed to rising prices, concerns about Black representation and culture, and sustained local engagement as motivating factors. Their accounts help give possible explanations of the turnout, but they are not a statistical breakdown of why each voter participated.
Black voters helped deliver Southern victories
Associated Press reporting published November 5 links strong Black turnout to victories beyond South Carolina. In Alabama, U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures won reelection despite a Republican redrawing of his district that made it more favorable to the GOP. In North Carolina, U.S. Rep. Don Davis also retained a seat in a district Republicans had redrawn to favor their party.
In Georgia, the AP reported that Black voters helped propel Keisha Lance Bottoms to become the first Black woman elected governor in U.S. history. Black women also won the state’s races for attorney general, secretary of state, agriculture commissioner, insurance commissioner, labor commissioner and school superintendent. Those victories connect the turnout story to concrete gains in representation.
The AP Voter Poll also found stronger Democratic support among Black voters. About 9 in 10 Black men in Georgia voted for Bottoms, compared with roughly three-quarters who supported Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. More broadly, about 9 in 10 Black voters supported the Democratic candidate in their local U.S. House race in 2026, compared with about 8 in 10 who supported Harris in 2024, the AP reported. These are comparisons across different offices and candidates, not a direct measure of turnout or a like-for-like comparison of House elections.
In Clayton County, Georgia, where about two-thirds of residents are Black, Bottoms received almost 86,000 votes—about 13,600 more than Stacey Abrams received in her 2022 gubernatorial campaign, according to the AP. Those are countywide candidate totals, not a count of ballots cast exclusively by Black voters.
Party leaders and activists interviewed by the AP described the results as a response to weakened voting-rights protections and redistricting. LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, also cited the Trump administration’s retreat from diversity initiatives and changes to the government’s treatment of racial and civil-rights history as motivating factors.
Georgia’s racial turnout gap narrowed sharply
A November 6 analysis by Brennan Center researchers Arlyss Herzig and Kevin T. Morris extends the turnout story beyond South Carolina. Using preliminary Georgia participation records, they found that Black turnout rose dramatically compared with the 2022 midterms while White turnout declined. Georgia’s White–Black turnout gap was the smallest in any midterm election in the previous 20 years, the researchers reported.
The pattern reflected both stronger retention of Black voters from the last presidential election and participation by people who had not voted in that contest. Among Georgians who voted in 2024, 24.3 percent of Black voters did not vote in 2026, compared with 29.5 percent of White voters. Among those who voted in 2026, 12.8 percent of Black voters had not voted in 2024, compared with 6.9 percent of White voters. These comparisons describe participation across elections, not necessarily first-time voting.
The center also found that turnout in majority-minority counties formerly covered by the Voting Rights Act’s preclearance requirements was as much as 10 percentage points higher than in 2022. Increases were smaller in majority-minority counties elsewhere. The researchers suggested anger over the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision as a possible explanation, rather than an established cause.
Those county findings are not a nationwide Black turnout rate: they measure aggregate participation in communities with different racial compositions. The analysis included counties reporting at least 95 percent of their estimated ballots by 3 p.m. Eastern on November 6. Georgia’s race-specific findings were preliminary; the researchers said broader voter-file evidence would become available in the coming months.
Billions in advertising—not the same as donations
AdImpact’s November 2 breakdown showed broadcast television receiving $5.84 billion, connected TV $2.61 billion, digital advertising $1.78 billion, cable $1.27 billion, radio $284 million and satellite $82.7 million.
An earlier October 27 report in TheWrap put advertising spending and reservations at $11.21 billion and explicitly noted that the tally included future placements, not just commercials already aired.
The Brennan Center for Justice supplied a separate measure of the money behind the election: the 40 biggest donors contributed more than $2.4 billion through mid-October. Its analysis counted contributions to candidates, parties and political committees—not advertising purchases.
The center reported that donors exclusively supporting Republicans gave $1.5 billion, more than three times the amount from reliably Democratic donors. It also found that dark-money groups accounted for 29 percent of giving among the top 40.
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