Hi there! My name is Janko Roettgers, and this is Lowpass. This week: A deep dive on streaming & political ads, and some updates on Sesame.

It’s about a month until the 2026 midterm election, and the situation couldn’t be more fluid: Hardly a day goes by without a story about Democrats targeting or Republicans defending what was long assumed to be a safe seat. Campaigns are spending money to reach voters in Alaska, Kansas, South Carolina and many other places that haven’t seen big advertising spending in some time because they weren't considered to be competitive — and an increasing share of that  money is going to streaming services.

Whether all this will cause a blue wave or whether Republicans will be able to squeeze by thanks to an 11th-hour advertising avalanche is at this point anyone’s guess. What’s already clear is that streaming is a major winner of this election. “Nearly half of all TV viewing now happens on streaming, and campaigns are putting more money into connected TV than ever before,” says Mark Jablonowski, CEO of DSPolitical, a company that powers Democratic and progressive campaigns. “The question that matters is which voters that money will actually reach in the midterms.”

Even among streaming services, there are winners and losers. A few of them are poised to win the lion’s share of the billions of dollars at stake, while others will have to fight for scraps. Spending is also highly unequal between parties, and the last-minute scramble to defend vulnerable seats (or put additional seats in play) is further benefitting a few online juggernauts.

And then there’s Netflix. The streaming giant decided not to run any political ads at all. What impact would it have on political advertising if Netflix changed course? And is there a silver lining in Netflix staying on the sidelines?

For this week’s newsletter, I decided to take a closer look at all of this: How big of a role does streaming play in this year’s election, who are the winners and losers, and what, if anything, does all of this tell us about the race itself?

Strap in, we’re gonna crunch some numbers.