"Political advertising has been a real motivating and mainly a good thing for us in 2022."

That's how Steven Passwaiter, Vice President of Growth & Strategy in the Media Intelligence division of Kantar and a CMAG Senior Advisor, began a TVB Forward Conference presentation midday Thursday that offered a plethora of fresh data on how political ad dollars are trending across the 2022 election season.

"It's one for the record books," he said before sharing 2018 and 2020 political ad dollars. With 47 days until Election Day, we are now 10% over the presidential year and 50% over 2018.

Even more, Kantar has upped its record-breaking political ad spending estimate to $9 billion. Los Angeles and Las Vegas are attracting many of those ad dollars. The No. 1 station for political ad revenue? It's Cox Media Group's flagship property, WSB-2 in Atlanta.

The issues most coming up in advertising? Inflation, reproductive rights, healthcare and public safety are tops. 

What another big takeaways did Passwaiter share? They're all here in this special InFOCUS Podcast, presented by dot.FM, recorded live on September 22 at Chelsea Piers in New York to close out the live General Session of the TVB Forward Conference.