The biggest digital ad battleground of 2022?
Georgia’s Senate and Gubernatorial contests will be fiercely contested. Here’s how they’re playing out online.
When I moved from DC back home to Cobb County, Georgia in January, I braced myself for three things: heavy traffic, high pollen counts, and heaps of political ads. Working from home has largely saved me from the worst traffic and pollen, but there is absolutely no getting away from the firehose of Abrams, Kemp, Perdue, Warnock, and Walker ads in my mailbox, on billboards, TV, streaming platforms, and social media. And it’s only April.
So for this week’s FWIW, I dug into how Georgia’s Senate and Gubernatorial campaigns are investing in digital ads to fundraise, persuade, and in the GOP’s case, turn out voters in the May primary.
But first…
By the numbers
FWIW, here were the top-spending political advertisers on Meta platforms (Facebook + Instagram) last week:
Industry groups trying to influence legislation in Washington, DC, have been dominating Meta ad spending recently. In fact, four of the top ten political advertisers nationwide last week - CCIA, American Edge, Taxpayer Protection Alliance, and NetChoice - were tech industry groups running ads to kill anti-trust legislation in Congress.
In terms of digital spending actually impacting the midterm elections, Democrats and affiliated groups remain far ahead of their GOP opponents. That could soon change, as conservative outside groups this week launched two new big-money efforts to impact the midterms: Sentinel Action Fund and Eighteen Fifty Four Fund. We’ll be keeping an eye on their spending in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, here were the top political advertisers on Google platforms last week, including YouTube:
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ re-election campaign began spending heavily on digital ads this week, topping all other GOP candidates nationwide. His campaign is unsurprisingly using culture war messaging in national ads to bolster his far-right, grassroots support.
Lastly, here are the top political ad spenders on Snapchat so far this year:
While a handful of conservative advertisers like the NRSC, Marco Rubio, and the Daily Wire have advertised on Snapchat this year, Democrats and progressive groups mostly have the platform to themselves. This comes as TechCrunch reported last night that Snapchat continues to beat Facebook and Twitter in terms of daily active user growth.
Looking for full midterm digital spending data? We provide complete Senate, Gubernatorial, and House race numbers just for paying subscribers.
…Elsewhere on the internet
A Michigan State Senator showed some righteous indignation at Republican culture war attacks and maybe discovered a new messaging tack for Democrats in the process. Sen. Mallory McMorrow’s viral video has gained over 14 million views and counting on Twitter alone. The speech helped her campaign raise a staggering sum in 24 hours.
While PA Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman hasn’t smoked weed since Burning Man 1999, he is one of the most vocal proponents of marijuana legalization out of leading U.S. Senate candidates. Fetterman posted on Facebook about 4/20 eight times on Wednesday. Here’s how Democrats running for U.S. Senate marked 4/20 on social media this week.
If you’re like us, you’re probably receiving more political text messages than ever this cycle. That’s why we spoke with one expert on how and why campaigns use the channel to reach voters, identify supporters, and recruit volunteers. Read this week’s Campaigner Q&A >>
Cynical or pragmatic? The New York Times had an interesting piece out this week about grassroots Democrats donating en masse to candidates who have little or no chance of winning. It’s worth a read.
The biggest digital ad battleground of 2022? 🍑
Ad spending in Georgia’s midterm elections has already reached a fever pitch, and it’s only April. 😳 While the vast majority of that spending has been on television ads, I’ve also been flooded with paid communications via practically every other channel - especially online.
When it comes to raw digital spending, Raphael Warnock and Stacey Abrams are crushing their opponents in their respective races. Our tracking of battleground Senate and gubernatorial races indicates that this has made Georgia the most expensive state to campaign in online so far this cycle. Here’s how much the statewide campaigns have spent on Facebook and Google ads so far this year:
Abrams and Warnock are selling accomplishments
Notably, Warnock and Abrams’ campaigns are not just spending digital dollars on fundraising ads - the typical focus of a campaign’s digital ad spend at this stage in the cycle. Both campaigns have spent a not-insignificant amount of money on boosted news and issue-based video ads intended to inform and persuade voters.
For example, the Abrams campaign has highlighted the candidate’s work over the past few years eliminating medical debt and uplifting local businesses, in part using a Facebook page called “The Georgia Report” to boost positive news clips. They’re also incorporating that work in slick video ads to hammer home her core message of opportunity: “One Georgia, where everyone has the opportunity to rise together.”
Much like how the Abrams campaign is spending resources re-introducing the candidate to the Georgia electorate, the Warnock campaign in February launched their own campaign reinforcing the hardworking pastor image they cultivated in 2020. Since then, they’ve run ads promoting the Senator’s efforts to lower costs for Georgians, in support of suspending the gas tax, and holding companies accountable for price gouging.
In addition to these types of ads on Meta and Google platforms, Abrams and Warnock have also got Snapchat to themselves where they have spent $24,880 and $38,779 so far this year, respectively.
As Walker memes, Kemp and Perdue race to the right
By contrast, the GOP candidates are running small-scale, Trumpian digital ad campaigns (mostly) focused on the May primary election. The biggest spender among them is Herschel Walker’s campaign for Senate, which is following the Trump campaign’s playbook of throwing sh*t at the wall to see what sticks. Here’s a taste of what Georgians are seeing on their feeds from the Walker campaign:
As for the other three Republicans’ digital ad campaigns, there frankly isn’t much to them. Each is racing to the right; Brain Kemp is pushing the conservative laws he passed this year, David Perdue is trying to run on Trump’s endorsement and little else, and while Gary Black is almost certain to lose his primary to Walker, that’s not stopping him from doing everything he can to tear down his opponent.
In-State vs. Out-of-State Facebook targeting
As readers of this newsletter are well aware, many digital ad dollars are often spent on national fundraising ads not intended to reach actual voters. That’s why we looked at how much these candidates have spent targeting Facebook ads to voters in Georgia vs. supporters out of state.
By this metric, Warnock and Abrams once again come out on top - with hundreds of thousands already spent reaching actual Georgians. On the Republican side, Perdue has spent the highest percentage of his meager Facebook budget targeting Georgians, but that’s likely because his team has primarily used these ads to promote local campaign events. On the flipside, both Walker and Kemp are spending as much as 80 percent of their Facebook budgets on reaching potential out-of-state donors who can’t vote for them.
Outside spending
Aside from the candidates themselves, we’ve also seen some significant levels of “outside group” spending on Facebook and Instagram - mostly from Democrats and their allies.
Over the past three months, Democratic Super PAC Priorities USA has spent a huge amount of money - over $700,000 - in the state to turn voters against both Kemp and Perdue. They’ve done so via a Facebook page branded “Our Power is Us.” Additionally, progressive advocacy group Fair Fight Action spent over $300k on ads reaching Georgia voters that advocate for progressive causes in the state, as well as subtly boost Warnock and hit Kemp.
Conservative outside groups have been M.I.A. when it comes to digital advertising in Georgia. The only GOP-affiliated political organization to spend on midterm advertising on Facebook thus far is 34N22, a group supporting Herschel Walker’s candidacy for U.S. Senate. If you’re confused by their name too, it's a lame reference to Walker’s football jersey #34 “in” 2022. One of the group’s attacks on Warnock tries to make “WarnockTheWarlock” a thing. Try again y’all.
As we mentioned at the outset, all of this digital spending is dwarfed by the $100 million+ that will be spent on television ads in the coming months. However, an early analysis of the digital advertising landscape can be helpful to illustrate which campaigns have the sophistication and capacity to quickly scale their efforts, and which are struggling to get the basics together. One thing’s for certain: it’s going to be a long six months to Election Day, so buckle up.