The Campaign Trends to Watch in 2026
For much of the political world, 2025 was a year of transition.
Democrats spent much of the year trying to chart a path forward after Kamala Harris’ punishing loss to President Donald Trump in 2024. Republicans are facing new headwinds on kitchen-table issues, like the cost of living and healthcare. Artificial intelligence expanded its footprint in just about every sector, including the politics business.
Now, with 2026 quickly approaching, there are countless trends taking shape in the campaign industry. Here’s a look at just a few of them:
1. The Influencer Explosion
The 2025 elections showed how partnerships with online influencers and content creators could be put to use in state-wide and local campaigns. Look no further than New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s influencer operation.
Now, with 2026 approaching, campaign operatives are looking to replicate those partnerships. New firms specializing in creator outreach and strategy are pitching their services to candidates up and down the ballot and urging early investments in organic media and influencer engagement.
At the same time, political professionals are starting to gain a broader understanding of the influencer economy. They’re no longer just looking at the biggest accounts – those with hundreds of thousands or millions of followers – but tracking the engagement of smaller, more-localized creators in a bid to reach specific audiences.
2. The Continued Rise of AI in Advertising
There are plenty of examples of campaigns experimenting with artificial intelligence. But in most cases, that experimentation has been relegated to work, like summarizing long reports and analyses and workshopping fundraising emails.
But behind the scenes, ad makers are increasingly using AI as a key part of their process, from A/B testing scripts to creating voiceovers for rough cuts of ad spots. And of course, there’s still the temptation to use AI to mock-up opponents’ voices.
Even on the ad-buying side, some of the biggest platforms, including Meta and Amazon, are rolling out new suites of AI-driven advertising tools that will handle everything from the creative to placing the by. In short, there’s no avoiding AI in the advertising world anymore.
3. A New Approach to Digital Fundraising?
Campaigners have spent the past year workshopping ways to combat donor burnout and the general sense of annoyance that many voters feel when being contacted by a campaign or cause.
There have been some institutional efforts to address the problem. ActBlue, for example, implemented a set of new account use policies earlier this year in an effort to crack down on bad actors and scammy fundraising pleas. The Democratic National Committee sent a cease-and-desist letter to a PAC that it accused of “exploiting the goodwill of Democratic voters for personal profit.”
Many political pros have acknowledged that there’s a need to step back from texts and emails promoting false senses of urgency, non-existent deadlines and arbitrary fundraising goals. Whether they continue to pursue solutions, however, remains a big question, especially given the pressure both parties will be under in the 2026 campaign season.
4. The Professionalization of Down-Ballot Races
Down-ballot campaigns – particularly those at the local level – have historically lacked the money and resources to cobble together the highly professional fundraising, canvassing and persuasion programs that have long defined larger races.
But a handful of firms and startups have begun experimenting with new, AI-powered systems that some in the industry argue will make professionalized campaigning worlds more affordable and accessible to down-ballot candidates.
The basic idea: By automating campaign tasks, like voter targeting, modeling and analysis, consultants can put their services within the financial reach of candidates running for anything from state legislative seats to school boards.
Whether 2026 will be the year that the political world will see that tech in action, however, remains to be seen.
