As midterms loom, party committees spend big online
FWIW, the NRSC spent more on digital ads in the past 11 months than every Democratic committee combined
Last year, the national Republican party committees - the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Campaign Committee, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee - outraised or kept about even with their Democratic counterparts. This could be attributed to a variety of factors, including Republican grassroots enthusiasm and deceptive tactics, but there’s one consistent throughline that we notice almost every single week: Senate Republicans are investing a massive amount of cash into digital advertising to grow their base of grassroots donors and supporters online.
In this week’s FWIW, we’ll take a look at how the NRSC and the rest of the party committees are advertising online ahead of the midterms, but first…
By the numbers
FWIW, here were the top political ad spenders on Meta platforms (Facebook + Instagram) last week:
We continued to see steady investment in Facebook ads from tech-backed groups like the Taxpayers Protection Alliance and NetChoice, with the aim of killing anti-trust legislation on Capitol Hill. The TPA was the second-highest political ad spender nationwide last week.
The Texas Governor’s race began to heat up on Facebook as well, with Republican Gov. Greg Abbott launching his first major wave of advertising on the platform. His short video ads focus on his record on taxes, border security, abortion, and parental rights. Meanwhile, his Republican primary opponent, Don Huffines, and Democrat Beto O’Rourke have been running ads attacking him from both sides.
While Republicans and conservative groups have been regularly outspending liberals nationwide on Facebook week after week, when we look at ad dollars specifically targeting swing state voters, Democrats maintain an edge. That spending comes from groups like Building Back Together and Priorities USA - the latter of which launched a new branded campaign on Facebook last week targeting voters in Pennsylvania and New Hampshire + blaming Senate Republicans for Congressional inaction.
Meanwhile, here were the top-spending political advertisers on Google platforms last week, including YouTube:
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has been running a digital-first campaign for months, but now his potential Republican opponent, Richard Irvin, is up online with new YouTube ads pushing a law and order message.
…and lastly, here’s what year to date political ad spending on Snapchat looks like:
Midterm spending takeaways
The midterms are upon us, and we’re keeping a close eye on digital ad spending in key Senate, House, and Gubernatorial contests. For full access to the most comprehensive dataset of midterm digital spending, become a paying subscriber here. >>
Mark Kelly was the top-spending battleground Senate candidate on FB + Google ads last week (view Senate data)
Stacey Abrams was the top spending battleground Gubernatorial candidate on digital ads last week (view Gov data)
AZ-01 was the most expensive swing U.S. House district race online last week (view House data)
A new issue of Campaigner is out!
Campaigning in the 2021 “off-year” was defined by marquee statewide races in Virginia and New Jersey. In the Garden State, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy won an unexpectedly tight re-election race in the face of a tough national environment. For this week’s Campaigner newsletter, we spoke with his former Digital Director, Kait Demchuk, about what it’s like to lead a content-first digital operation on a statewide race, and what lessons can be applied to other campaigns. Read the issue here >>
The NRSC becomes an online grassroots behemoth
Last year, the national Republican party committees - the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Campaign Committee, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee - outraised or kept about even with their Democratic counterparts. This could be attributed to a variety of factors, including Republican grassroots enthusiasm and deceptive tactics, but there’s one consistent throughline that we notice almost every single week: Senate Republicans are investing a massive amount of cash into digital advertising to grow their base of grassroots donors and supporters online.
We’ve been reporting for months that the NRSC has been spending around $500,000 on Meta and Google ads every week, so to really get a handle on how much Republican and Democratic committees are spending online, we analyzed our weekly spending data for both platforms going back to early March 2021. We added up the spending by what we believe to be every official party committee and association - national, U.S. House, U.S. Senate, governors, lieutenant governors, attorneys general, secretaries of state, and state legislators - and this is what we found: