California has set another record, and for once it isn't the price of gas.
According to ad-tracking firm AdImpact, reported Monday, California's 2026 governor's race is projected to become the most expensive gubernatorial contest on record, at $351 million in political advertising. The previous record was $215 million, set in Illinois in 2022. California beat it by $136 million, which is roughly what Sacramento calls a rounding error and what the rest of us call a lottery jackpot.
California also leads every state in projected political ad spending this cycle, at $979 million. That's ahead of Michigan at $852 million and Texas at $850 million. Nationally, AdImpact projects $11.6 billion in political ads for the 2025-26 cycle, which would beat the 2022 midterm record of $8.9 billion and even the $11.2 billion spent in the 2024 presidential cycle.
Let's do the math, because no one in Sacramento will.
California has roughly 23 million registered voters. Divide the $979 million in projected ad spending by 23 million voters and you get about $42 per voter. At California pump prices, $42 buys most of a tank of regular in a Honda Civic. Not a full tank. This is California. Nobody gets a full tank. Instead they got 30 seconds of a man in rolled-up sleeves walking through a vineyard.
Now look at who wrote the biggest checks. The governor's race primary alone hit $327.6 million in ad spending and reservations, per AdImpact via ABC News. Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer shouldered 63 percent of that, and the secretary of state's office says he contributed at least $212 million of his own money to his bid. He finished outside the top two. Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Xavier Becerra advanced instead.
So, on the ledger:
Asset: one billionaire.
Expense: at least $212 million.
Revenue: zero votes counted toward November, because he isn't on the November ballot.
Most of us, if we spent $212 million and got nothing, would be visited by a man from the IRS. In California, you get to issue a statement urging everyone to vote for the guy who beat you.
The state that cannot build a train from Los Angeles to San Francisco can apparently build a record-breaking advertising pipeline in a single cycle. The high-speed rail project has been in the works since voters approved it in 2008. The ad money arrived on time and under no budget at all.
And remember, AdImpact says October alone historically accounts for 28 to 36 percent of a cycle's ad spending. So if your YouTube video about fixing a garbage disposal has been interrupted four times by a candidate promising "affordability," that's not a glitch. That's the most expensive governor's race in American history telling you, specifically, that things cost too much.
They're right. Things cost too much. Starting with the ads.
This article is satire. The Demorat is a parody news site; real facts are drawn from the linked sources, and jokes, invented scenes, and fictional characters are not real.
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