February’s biggest election

A look at the Chicago mayor’s race, major 2024 campaign moves, the digital State of the Union, and more…

Welcome back to FWIW - I took last week off for a long-planned vacation, but that means this week’s issue is jam-packed. Below, you’ll find some major 2024 presidential campaign moves, a snapshot of digital spending in the Chicago Mayor’s race, and a look at the online impact of President Biden’s State of the Union speech. But first… 

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By the numbers

FWIW, here were the top-spending political advertisers on Facebook + Instagram last week:

Conservative media outlets Newsmax, The Daily Wire, and PragerU were all among the top spenders on political Facebook ads nationwide last week. Newsmax spent the most, pushing dozens of ads complaining about DirecTV’s “censorship” of the far-right channel. 

Meanwhile, here were the top-spending political advertisers on Google and YouTube last week:

On both Google/YouTube and Facebook/Instagram, Rep. Adam Schiff’s campaign for U.S. Senate was a top spender nationwide. His team is aggressively running fundraising ads to build a grassroots army in a competitive race against Rep. Katie Porter. 

…and here’s a quick look at political ad spending on Snapchat, year-to-date. 

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From around the internet

• I joined The Bunker podcast to break down the current state of digital politics and share my thoughts on the scammy nature of online fundraising. Twitter clip here>> Listen to the full episode here>>

• Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) had an excellent CSPAN debut this week during a House of Representatives hearing on “Big Tech Censorship.”

• Extremism is becoming big business for Twitter, according to the Washington Post. 

• Far-right troll & Daily Wire personality Matt Walsh testified before the Tennessee General Assembly, and a few good Dems held his feet to the fire.

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2024 dispatch

Next Wednesday, former UN Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley will announce her campaign for president, kicking off a season of what could be a dozen similar campaign launches. Haley has been running Facebook and Instagram ads all week targeting supporters in the Charleston metro area to build a crowd for a rally in Charleston.

In the lead-up to her campaign’s launch, Haley is not the only likely GOP presidential candidate running digital ads. We saw former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s team launch new Facebook ads last week, and six others have advertised on Facebook or Google this year. Here’s a breakdown: 

FWIW @FWIWnews

Even though the first primary votes won't be cast until next year, likely GOP presidential candidates are already running ads as part of an online "pre-campaign." Here's how much 💰 potential GOP presidential candidates have spent each week on Facebook + Google ads:

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February’s biggest election

2023 may be an “off-year” for national politics, but there are a number of important elections from now through November - from gubernatorial races this fall to big-city municipal elections throughout the year. One of those is Chicago’s mayoral election, slated for February 28th. Incumbent Mayor and former pandemic meme Lori Lightfoot is facing a tough re-election challenge from a progressive Congressman and a former public schools leader, among others. 

Here’s how much the leading candidates have spent online to reach voters in the past month:

Not surprisingly, the campaign has become a back-and-forth about crime, with challengers needling the incumbent on the issue while making sure not to be seen as “defund the police” people themselves. Lightfoot, on the other hand, is using Facebook ads to boost news articles backing up her anti-crime record: 

One of her leading opponents, Rep. Chuy Garcia, is running this ad on YouTube vowing to tackle violent crime and its root causes:

…and a committee supporting Paul Vallas, who according to some polls is in a three-way race with Lightfoot and Garcia, is running streaming and television ads saying fighting crime is his “number one priority.”

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The digital State of the Union

Two things can be true at the same time: a President’s State of the Union speech is kind of a tired thing in American politics, which most Americans typically forget soon after it is given. It’s also a huge, hyped tradition, which millions of Americans will see at least see clips of in one form or another. 

As Dan Pfeiffer writes, “The political impact of this speech is greatly overstated. It rarely moves poll numbers or changes minds. But it can be an important building block for a longer-term strategy… “it’s hard to screw up, but it’s also hard to soar.”

I was interested in seeing what Americans’ Google Search interest has looked like for “state of the union” over the past 20 years - here’s what I found:

While Google’s data for this week’s speech is still being processed, it’s unlikely that Tuesday night generated more interest than Donald Trump’s three speeches, which often relied on outrage bait and a bit of trolling to drive the press into a frenzy.

One sticky piece of content that emerged from this year’s SOTU, however, was the President’s attack on GOP efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare.

MSNBC @MSNBC

After Biden's claim that some Republicans want to end Medicare and Social Security provoked GOP anger, the president responds, "I'm glad to see it, I enjoy conversion." "Social Security and its bookend, Medicare, are off the books now, right?," Biden adds. "We have unanimity!"

He expertly used the speech to chide Republicans on the issue, and they took the bait. It resulted in several days of back and forth in the press between prominent Republicans over whether or not they support cutting some of America’s most popular government programs. 

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