Voter files show party. Social signals show what voters care about.

Political interests can change quickly, especially in local races and campaigns centered on a single issue. Party affiliation and voting history in traditional voter files remain the foundation of political advertising, but they don’t always show which issues, causes and conversations are shaping voter attention right now.

StatSocial and IQM have launched six exclusive political audiences for the 2026 midterms, designed to complement traditional voter files with a more current view of political interests. Informed by public social engagement around issues, causes, and media, the audiences cover 67.5 million distinct people nationwide (based on StatSocial’s national count as of September 17, 2026) and are available now, exclusively through IQM’s programmatic advertising platform.

Political interests go beyond left and right

Traditional political data can tell campaigns a lot about party affiliation and voting history. What it may not capture as clearly is how people engage with different issues, voices and communities as political conversations evolve.

StatSocial’s audiences add that layer by mapping who people follow and engage with across the political spectrum, from commentators and creators to grassroots organizers and local voices. They also split political leaning into social and economic dimensions. The result is a more detailed picture of political interests beyond a single left-right classification, with room for issue-based messaging and coalition work.

Six audiences show a more nuanced political spectrum

The six audiences map the 2026 political spectrum, from the hardest partisans on each side to those who sit outside traditional party lines. They are built for issue advocacy, ballot initiatives, candidate races and local rapid response, when campaigns need to find persuadable voters before the vote:

• On the left: one audience follows independent and democratic-socialist voices and movements (13.9M); a second centers on legacy political journalism and Democratic Party institutions (11.9M).
• In the middle: one group follows politics closely but attaches to neither side (11.9M); the other skews younger and has a political record that doesn’t resemble the partisan groups (12M).
• On the right: one audience follows right-leaning movement media over mainstream Republican outlets (11.9M); a separate group follows right-leaning cultural and political voices and outlets (4.9M).

One person can sit in more than one audience, so segment counts should not be added together.

Political engagement can happen outside traditional news

One of the more notable findings in StatSocial’s broader political data is that 16.1 million people show signs of political engagement but follow no news outlet, newspaper or political account.

That reinforces a larger point: political interests aren’t always visible through traditional news consumption or party affiliation alone. Public social engagement can add context around the issues, causes and communities drawing voter attention, including among people that news-based media plans may not reach.

Why changing signals matter

The closer an election gets, the faster priorities and political conversations can change. In political advertising, social engagement signals can complement traditional voter files by showing what different audiences are paying attention to as those conversations move.
For political advertisers, a few implications stand out:

• Interests can move faster than voter files. Issues, causes and voices can gain or lose attention as the election develops.
• Influence reaches beyond traditional political media. Commentators, creators, grassroots organizers and local voices can all shape what audiences engage with.
• Party alignment doesn’t tell the whole story. Social and economic interests can add context for issue-based outreach beyond affiliation alone.

“Political campaigns need to understand more than whether someone falls on the left or the right,” said David Barker, CEO of StatSocial. “Who people listen to, the communities they engage with, and the issues they follow help show what matters to them. Bringing that behavior into programmatic media gives campaigns a clearer way to reach voters.”

How campaigns can activate the audiences

StatSocial’s political audiences are listed in IQM Segmented Audiences and matched to the IQM Identity Graph, so campaigns can activate them across channels in one platform, with no handoff. Buyers can layer the audiences alongside their own voter files, IQM Power Segments and contextual signals, and refine them by state, DMA, district or custom geofencing.

What political advertisers should take away

Political advertising has long relied on voter targeting, but the signals shaping voter interests can move quickly. Traditional voter files remain an important foundation; public social engagement adds another way to understand what audiences are paying attention to heading into the final weeks of the 2026 midterms.

Explore StatSocial’s six political audiences, available now and exclusively through IQM for the 2026 midterms, or contact your IQM representative to add them to your omnichannel campaigns. Read the full announcement from IQM and StatSocial.

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