Yahoo and Comscore Collaborate on Political Ad Infrastructure Ahead of 2026 Midterms

Multiple ad tech players are rolling out CTV-specific political advertising products ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, signaling that the battle for political dollars has moved decisively from linear television to streaming infrastructure.

Last Thursday, Comscore and Yahoo DSP announced Proximic Political Audiences, a first-to-market product that feeds Comscore's linear television exposure data into streaming viewership reach via Yahoo's demand-side platform. The product is designed to deliver identify campaign voters not yet reached by linear spend, reaching incremental audiences, and unlocking impressions at the local market level across all 210 U.S. DMAs. The stack combines Yahoo ConnectID as the deterministic identity layer with MiQ's political division is the designated activation partner, having previously reported 30% stronger engagement using Comscore predictive segments compared to traditional ID-based targeting.

The Comscore-Yahoo partnership is the latest in a string of political streaming plays. In November of last year, DirecTV launched DirecTV Elect, an AI-powered platform that analyzes voter data, social media sentiment, and donation histories to enable zip-code-level targeting across its claimed 130 million monthly users. DirecTV pitched Elect as a direct competitor to local broadcast stations for political budgets, with access to premium inventory including live sports.

Ampersand has also entered the field with TrueStream Political, which consolidates authenticated streaming inventory from Comcast, Cox, and Charter into a single buying path with deterministic, household-level verification. In a January 2026 AdExchanger piece, Ampersand VP Al Behmoiras framed the product around a growing industry concern "In reality, identity quality varies dramatically across the ecosystem. Independent research shows probabilistic approaches can introduce meaningful inaccuracies, creating risk for advertisers in highly regulated, time-sensitive election cycles".

The dollars behind these moves are significant. AdImpact projects $2.5 billion in political ad spend going to audiences on streaming for 2026, part of a broader $10.8 billion political ad market. Proximic by Comscore's 2026 State of Programmatic Report found that 45% of marketers increasing programmatic CTV budgets are reallocating from linear television. Magnite reported CTV contribution ex-TAC growth of 32% in Q4 2025, excluding political spend.

The common thread across all three products is the push to solve cross-screen coordination: ensuring that a voter reached on broadcast at 6 p.m. is not redundantly served the same message on a streaming app at 9 p.m. Each vendor approaches the problem differently. Comscore-Yahoo relies on panel-based linear exposure data matched to deterministic digital identity. DirecTV leverages its own first-party footprint and AI-driven audience modeling. Ampersand consolidates authenticated MVPD supply.

What remains to be seen is whether any of these approaches can deliver verified incremental reach at the district-level precision that down-ballot races require. The 2026 cycle will be the proving ground.

By the Numbers

• $10.8B — Projected total U.S. political ad spending for the 2026 midterms (AdImpact)
• $2.5B — Projected streaming share of that political ad spend (AdImpact)
• 45% — Share of marketers increasing programmatic budgets on Connected TV device types, reallocating from linear TV (Proximic by Comscore, 2026 State of Programmatic Report)
• $1 in $4 — Expected streaming share of total media budgets in 2026 across all ad categories (Proximic by Comscore)
• 232M — Logged-in U.S. users reached by Yahoo ConnectID
• 210 DMAs — 100% coverage of U.S. Designated Market Areas covered by Comscore's MRC-accredited local TV measurement
• 130M — Monthly users across DirecTV's streaming and cable inventory
• 30% — Engagement lift MiQ reported using Comscore predictive segments vs. traditional ID-based segments

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