The Most Expensive Midterms Ever: Spending Projected at $11.9 Billion as Palm Beach County Votes
OpenSecrets projects the 2026 midterms will cost $11.9 billion, the most expensive midterm election in American history, with outside spending by super PACs driving the record as voters decide control of Congress on Tuesday.
The 2026 midterm campaign is on track to become the most expensive in the country's history, with total spending projected to reach $11.9 billion, according to OpenSecrets, the independent political spending tracker, in its Oct. 30 analysis of Federal Election Commission filings. That is up from $8.9 billion in the 2022 midterms — $10.2 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars — and it would surpass the total spent on congressional elections in 2024 as well, OpenSecrets said.
More than $9.5 billion had already been spent during the cycle based on FEC filings through mid-October, and political action committees and super PACs accounted for more than $5.5 billion of the spending recorded so far, according to the BBC Verify accounting of the figures, read this cycle. Outside spending is expected to reach $3.9 billion in 2026, an 85 percent increase on the $2 billion of 2022, and OpenSecrets has already tracked nearly $1.47 billion in dark-money contributions to outside groups — above the $1.35 billion record from 2024, which included a presidential race.
The top two spending groups as of Oct. 30 were the Senate Leadership Fund at $489 million and MAGA Inc. at $353 million, OpenSecrets said, and it expects Democratic candidates to spend more than $2.2 billion by the end of the cycle against about $1.4 billion for Republican candidates. For Palm Beach County voters, who are deciding races for the U.S. Senate, Congress, governor and the state legislature on Tuesday, the record is the backdrop to every advertisement they have seen this fall: the money arrived at a scale no midterm has carried before, and the final accounting will not be in until after the votes are counted.
