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Bulletins

Before the Georgia election, Democrats spent four times as much as Republicans on Facebook

The Democratic advertisers in the top 10 spent nearly $2.8 million on Facebook ads in the week leading up to the election.

Jon Ossoff

Jon Ossoff was one of the Senate candidates benefitting from a huge Democratic ad push on Facebook.

Photo: Jessica McGowan/Getty Images

Seven of the the top 10 spenders on political Facebook ads in the week leading up to Georgia's election supported Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and Senator-elect Reverend Raphael Warnock. Just three supported their Republican opponents, Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.

The Democratic advertisers in the top 10, including the Warnock and Ossoff campaigns as well as groups like the AFL-CIO's Working America and Stacey Abrams' Fair Fight, spent nearly $2.8 million on Facebook ads in the seven days leading up to the election. That's compared to nearly $682,000 spent by the top three Republican advertisers: The Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and Georgia United Victory, a conservative PAC. The difference was equally stark among the top ten political advertisers during the 30 days leading up to to the election, when Democrats spent $5.3 million on Facebook ads to Republicans' $1.3 million. Warnock's campaign alone spent nearly $1.7 million during that period.

The dramatic spending gap is notable, particularly given Democratic concerns early on that Facebook's ban on political ads after Election Day in November was giving Republican incumbents an advantage in Georgia. In December, largely due to that feedback, Facebook began allowing political ads to be targeted to Georgia, and the money quickly flooded in, particularly from the left.

Issie Lapowsky
Issie Lapowsky (@issielapowsky) is a senior reporter at Protocol, covering the intersection of technology, politics, and national affairs. Previously, she was a senior writer at Wired, where she covered the 2016 election and the Facebook beat in its aftermath. Prior to that, Issie worked as a staff writer for Inc. magazine, writing about small business and entrepreneurship. She has also worked as an on-air contributor for CBS News and taught a graduate-level course at New York University’s Center for Publishing on how tech giants have affected publishing. Email Issie.
content moderation
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Image: Omar Marques/Getty Images

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Issie Lapowsky
Issie Lapowsky (@issielapowsky) is a senior reporter at Protocol, covering the intersection of technology, politics, and national affairs. Previously, she was a senior writer at Wired, where she covered the 2016 election and the Facebook beat in its aftermath. Prior to that, Issie worked as a staff writer for Inc. magazine, writing about small business and entrepreneurship. She has also worked as an on-air contributor for CBS News and taught a graduate-level course at New York University’s Center for Publishing on how tech giants have affected publishing. Email Issie.
reddit gamestop content moderation
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Photo: Qilai Shen/Getty Images

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