Answer extracted from the Pod Save America podcast — listen to the full episode below.
What is the Priorities USA $30 million campaign targeting in 2025–2026?
Priorities USA has already launched a $30 million campaign to define 2028 Republican candidates during the 2026 midterm election cycle, including figures like J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio. The strategy reflects the organization's belief that the 2028 presidential race will effectively begin the moment the 2026 midterms conclude.
This early investment in defining future Republican candidates is part of a broader strategic shift in how Priorities USA approaches presidential politics. Rather than waiting until 2027 or 2028 to begin shaping the narrative around potential GOP nominees, the super PAC is seizing the attention and media opportunity of the 2026 election cycle to run ads and campaigns that establish the political identity of these figures before the next presidential race officially begins.
As Danielle Butterfield explains in the episode, this reflects a fundamental change in how Democratic strategists view the electoral calendar. The days of a compressed, traditional presidential campaign season are over—the 2028 race is treated as having already started on election night 2024.
"Nine out of the ten top YouTube ads in 2024 were just 30-second ads that ran on TV first. We are quite literally practically taking 30-second ads that we run on TV and then putting them on YouTube and expecting people to watch them — and that is quite literally lighting money on fire."
Danielle Butterfield — Executive Director, Priorities USA. She joined the organization in 2017 following the Hillary Clinton campaign, initially as Digital Director, and has since led a transformation of Priorities USA from a traditional presidential super PAC into an organization anchored in digital research, infrastructure, and innovation across election cycles. Under her leadership, the organization built an in-house innovation team rather than relying on outside consultants.
The $30 million campaign highlights how sophisticated Democratic digital infrastructure has become. Priorities USA's research into less politically engaged voters shows that defining candidates early on social platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram is critical, as these are the channels where the least politically engaged Americans actually discover political information. This stands in sharp contrast to how Republicans and many traditional campaigns still approach advertising.
The timing is deliberate: by investing heavily in 2025–2026, Priorities USA is establishing cultural and political narratives about J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, and other potential 2028 Republican nominees before they have fully consolidated their own messaging. This "definition phase" is seen as far more cost-effective and impactful than waiting to respond to Republican candidate definitions during a compressed general election season in 2028. A point detailed further in this podcast episode is how Priorities USA's always-on survey research into voter media consumption informs exactly where these ads should appear.
Why 2026 is the New 2028
The strategic insight driving this decision is that the midterm cycle has become inseparable from the presidential race. Rather than treating 2026 as a separate election, Priorities USA treats it as the de facto start of the 2028 presidential campaign, with different players and a different media environment than what campaigns faced in 2020 or 2016.
This approach also reflects lessons learned from 2024, when Democratic organizations discovered that reaching less politically engaged voters required meeting them on platforms and formats they actually used—not traditional television or email. The $30 million in spending during 2026 is designed to reach these voters while attention and ad dollars are still flowing, before the 2028 campaign proper begins and costs for digital advertising skyrocket.
Key takeaways
- Priorities USA is spending $30 million from 2025–2026 to define 2028 Republican candidates like J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio during the midterm cycle.
- The organization believes the 2028 presidential race has effectively already begun, collapsing the traditional gap between midterm elections and presidential campaigns.
- Early candidate definition on social platforms (TikTok, YouTube, Instagram) costs far less than responding to Republican messaging during a compressed 2028 general election season.
- This strategy reflects Priorities USA's research showing that less engaged voters discover political information on digital platforms, not traditional media.
See also
How has the definition of 'search' changed and what platforms are now part of the search landscape?
Google maintains predominant market share and continues to generate the majority of its revenue from search. However, as people spend more time on platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, the traditional search landscape has fundamentally shifted to include social media and other emerging platforms as key discovery channels.
What was the methodology and scale of the Priorities USA search behavior study?
The study analyzed approximately six million searches from opted-in users who shared their behavioral data with a third-party provider. It covered two time periods: late 2024 and a portion of 2025, capturing real search behavior across the political landscape during critical moments.
How does Priorities USA study the media habits of less politically engaged voters?
Priorities USA runs an always-on survey operation where participants are paid to send screenshots of their screen-time apps, which are then validated and analyzed to understand how less engaged voters are consuming media across TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and other digital platforms.