The Digital Battlegrounds Of 2024

Advertising

DeSantis outspends Trump on digital ads ahead of GOP debates
Open Secrets
“Trump has spent $928,544 on Meta and Google — which includes Facebook, Instagram and YouTube — while DeSantis has spent $1.8 million, making him the only GOP candidate to spend over $1 million on digital ads across the platforms so far in 2023.”

Campaigns

Biden, With Sluggish Small Donations, Waits for Liberal Energy to Rise
New York Times
“The Biden campaign and the Biden Victory Fund, its joint fund-raising vehicle, collected $10.2 million from small donors — defined as those who gave $200 or less — during the three-month fund-raising period that ended June 30, according to a Federal Election Commission report filed Saturday. That figure is about half of the $21 million President Barack Obama’s campaign raised during the same period of his 2012 re-election effort.”

‘Built On Muscle:’ The DeSantis Campaign’s Playbook to Beat Trump and Shock the Haters
The Messenger
“In the past month, Facebook’s ad library shows DeSantis and his campaign have posted 2,323 separate creative items. In a distant second are two primary rivals, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (who has 602 pieces up) and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez (561). Trump is in eighth in terms of creative pieces on Facebook, with 189.”

Content

RNC taps Ruthless Podcast for "GameDay"-style debate pregame
Axios
“The plan shows the new media landscape. The RNC will surround-sound its Fox News debate in Wisconsin with other content.”

The Oddly Cautious Challengers to Trump
National Review
“I notice quite a few of the GOP presidential-campaign websites do not have ‘issues’ or agenda sections yet. Some of these candidates do feature their most recent media appearances, which sometimes give a sense of their policy proposals. But they don’t have any set-aside section that lays out their to-do list in detail. They all have ways to contribute, and almost all have online stores for campaign merchandise.”

Fundraising

GOP presidential hopefuls roll out flashy prizes to incentivize donors
Axios
“A sweepstakes for free college tuition, $20 gift cards and a 10% cut of any money raised are all on the table as outsider candidates fight to make the Republican National Committee debate stage.”

Social Media

What Your Campaign Should Do About Instagram Threads
Best Practice Digital
“Unless your campaign already has a meaningful following on Instagram, its focus should be on the main Facebook app where 52% of voters login every day.”

Meta cut election teams months before Threads launch, raising concerns for 2024
CNN
“Several members of the team that countered mis- and disinformation in the 2022 US midterms were laid off last fall and this spring, a person familiar with the matter said. The staffers are part of a global team that works on Meta’s efforts to counter disinformation campaigns seeking to undermine confidence in or sow confusion around elections.”

Head of engineering for Trump’s Truth Social app resigns
Reuters
“Gleason is the founder of Soapbox Technology, which provides open-source technology for “decentralized” social media platforms that operate on independently-run servers and provide an alternative to Twitter and Facebook.”

Technology

DeSantis PAC uses AI-generated Trump voice in ad attacking ex-president
Politico
“But the audio that the spot uses is not actually from Trump. A person familiar with the ad confirmed Trump’s voice was AI generated. Its content appears to be based off of a post that Trump made on his social media site Truth Social last week.”

3 Things Silicon Valley Doesn’t Understand About the Campaign Business
Campaigns & Elections
“More seriously, political campaigns usually come together fast and with a short deadline. And while this next observation may hurt the sensibilities of our more-innocent readers, not everyone in the political world is necessarily that honest, competent or reliable. When early voting’s right around the corner, who can I count on to get that field program off the ground? Someone I know can do the job.”