A Democratic Party-aligned super PAC is dropping hundreds of millions in media markets across the country, including three of Iowa’s biggest metros.
The top PAC working to elect Democrats to the US House of Representatives announced Thursday it is reserving more than $10.8 million in Iowa television and digital advertising. House Majority PAC’s reservations in three Iowa media markets are part of a $272 million national investment that marks the largest early ad reservation in the organization’s history and a jump in its Iowa investment.
The Iowa reservations include:
- $4.7 million in the Cedar Rapids market,
- $3.5 million in Des Moines,
- $2.7 million in the Quad Cities.
Ahead of elections, campaigns and PACs spend hundreds of millions of dollars blanketing the air waves and TV slots with ads promoting and opposing particular campaigns. The conventional wisdom is that ads, particularly TV ads, are more effective the longer and more consistently they run. But ad slots on TV are also infamously expensive.
The buy signals an aggressive Democratic posture heading toward November. The buys are not just in races like Iowa’s 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts, which are rated as “toss-ups,” but also in Iowa’s 2nd, where Democrats appear to face more difficult odds.
Iowa’s primary isn’t until June 2. So the final nominees will not be decided until then.
Iowa’s 1st Congressional District, where Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks faces a likely rematch against Democrat Christina Bohannan—a race rated a toss-up by Cook Political Report, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, and Inside Elections—anchors the PAC’s investment. But the scope of the reservations goes beyond just shoring up competitive ground.
The Cedar Rapids market buy, the largest of the three, extends into Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District, an open seat race rated “Likely R,” where Ashley Hinson’s departure for the US Senate race has scrambled the field and drawn fresh Democratic interest.
In the Des Moines market, the investment targets Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District, where Republican incumbent Zach Nunn faces state Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott in a race also rated a toss-up. Trone Garriott outraised Nunn in the first quarter of 2026.
These media buys stand out for a number of reasons. The Des Moines figure is more than double what HMP spent in that market across the entire 2024 cycle, when the group invested $1.3 million there. And HMP has not targeted Iowa’s 2nd District since 2020.
Nationally, HMP’s $272 million reservation—nearly $86 million more than its initial reservations in 2024—includes $80 million in digital advertising, double its 2024 digital investment. And nearly 80% of the reservations are in offensive districts, that is districts HMP hopes to flip.
“HMP’s historic television and digital ad reservations reflect that Democrats are firmly on offense heading into November,” said HMP President Mike Smith. “While Democrats are expanding the map nationwide, House Republicans are losing ground after failing to lower costs, making health care more expensive, and dragging us into another costly and unpopular foreign war.”
The reservations are early positioning—locking in lower rates before markets get crowded—and the final investment is expected to grow as the cycle heats up.
