The U.S. Senate candidate that’s winning Facebook

John Fetterman leads engagement on the social media platform week after week. What’s his strategy?

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Jun 24, 2022

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From Tuesday’s primary elections to the January 6th committee hearings and Supreme Court decisions, this week in politics has been… a lot. 🤡

In today’s newsletter, we have the latest digital spending data, a guide to the best campaign merch of the midterms, an interview with the Wisconsin Democrats, the top-performing candidates on Facebook, and much more.

But first…

By the numbers

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

Facebook ad spending last week remained generally unchanged, with The Daily Wire continuing to spend heavily on the platform. One notable new advertiser last week was the Judicial Crisis Network, which is running video ads tying Democrats to threats against Supreme Court justices’ safety.

Meanwhile, here were the top political advertisers on Google platforms last week, including YouTube:

Midterm election spending on Google and YouTube ads increased last week, with advertising in Senate races blanketing swing states from Wisconsin to Georgia. Conservative dark money group One Nation was again the top advertiser on the platform for the third week in a row.

Disgraced former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens released an ad this week in which he threatened to gun down his fellow Republicans (totally normal). It was quickly taken down by Facebook and censored by Twitter, but according to POLITICO, it served it’s purpose - Greitens had the best fundraising day of his terrible little campaign.

… and here are the top political ad spenders on Snapchat so far this year:

From around the internet

While it may not make or break a campaign’s chance of winning, when deployed well, political merch can help a campaign grow its war chest and engage its audience online. This week we published our guide to the best (and most cringe) campaign merch of the midterms>>

We spoke with the Democratic Party of Wisconsin’s Sr. Digital Director Bhavik Lathia about the state party's record of online innovation + what it's like to work at the center of the political universe. Read + subscribe here>>

As our democracy remains on the precipice, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is deprioritizing his team’s work to safeguard elections, according to the New York Times.

Equis Research published new research on online misinformation in Latino communities and its political ramifications. It’s worth a read here>>

Nerd alert - The DNC has built a new “secret weapon” for finding voters: a geographic address dataset. Read all about it in Protocol>>

Trending on Facebook:

Often, content that is shared organically on social media platforms like Facebook can have a much larger impact + reach than paid advertising. Which midterm candidates are receiving the most reactions, comments, and shares on their campaign’s Facebook posts? Starting today, we’ll provide those insights in terms of total post interactions on Facebook in a given week. After a few weeks, we’ll be providing these updates for only premium subscribers - so make sure to upgrade your subscription today>>

FWIW, here were the most engaged U.S. Senate candidates on Facebook last week:

Pennsylvania candidates John Fetterman and Dr. Oz led the field in terms of total post engagement, and Fetterman scored the top-performing Facebook post among Senate candidates last week, with a meme slamming Oz. We’ve got much more on Fetterman’s Facebook skills below.

Meanwhile, here’s the same data for battleground gubernatorial candidates on Facebook:

On the Gov. side, Texans Greg Abbott and Beto O’Rourke were neck and neck with Facebook interactions, far-outpacing all other campaigns. The top-performing post came from the Abbott camp, celebrating Republicans’ special election win last week.