Dems need to talk about popular things. They’re already doing it.
While Washington focuses on voting rights and filibuster failure, Democrats target swing voters with economic messaging online
As the media in Washington and pundits on Twitter continue to drown in Democrats’ legislative malaise on voting rights and Build Back Better, Democrats on the campaign trail - particularly Senate candidates - are already touting their very real accomplishments directly to voters.
In this week’s FWIW, we’ll share examples of how Democrats are talking about *popular things* directly to voters online 10 months out from the midterms.
But first…
By the numbers
FWIW, here were the top political ad spenders on Meta platforms (Facebook & Instagram) in the past week:
Tech industry lobbying group NetChoice ramped up their Facebook ad spending last week, as did the Computer & Communications Industry Association and the Taxpayers Protection Alliance. The groups have spent a combined $664,298 over the past 30 days on Facebook advertising. Their ad campaigns are laser-focused on killing Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s “American Innovation and Choice Online Act,” which has bipartisan support and would be a major victory for anti-trust advocates if signed into law. One set of ads even uses anti-Chinese warmongering to get their message across:
Meanwhile, here were the top spending political advertisers on Google during the same time period:
After the NRSC, End Citizens United was the top spender on Google ads last week. The liberal nonprofit spent nearly $100,000 on ads in support of the Freedom to Vote act, attempting to influence the likes of Joe Manchin despite his repeated, rock-solid opposition to changing Senate rules to pass the bill. Groups like End Citizens United have tried both the “carrot” and “stick” approach with Manchin, and the below ad is a very odd 🥕 strategy.
Next up, there were only a few candidates running ads on Roku’s platform last week - all Republicans. The campaigns up on Roku were:
🔴 Bernie Moreno for Senate (OH)
🔴 Whatley for State Senate (AL)
🔴 Todd Young for Senate (IN)
🔴 White for Governor (PA)
And lastly, here’s how much 💸 notable political advertisers have spent on Snapchat in 2022:
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. >>
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) 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)
CA 49 was the most expensive swing district U.S. House race online last week (view House data
Jobs report:
Looking to join the great resignation or great upgrade? Here are some 🔥 digital or digital-adjacent jobs that we stumbled across this week.
Dems need to talk about popular things. They’re already doing it.
One consistent take we’ve seen repeatedly on the political internet over the past two weeks is the opinion that Democrats need to ditch talk of voting rights and future legislative action in favor of bread and butter economic messaging to voters. Well, we’re happy to inform you that many are already doing that.