The second round of elections in Georgia is great for political fundraising – with legislators and political action committees from around the country getting into the fray to withdraw some money.
Facebook suspended political ads a week before election day, but announced earlier this month that they would be temporarily resumed before the second round. The exemption applies only to ads targeted in the state.
Republican senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler hope to avoid the challenges of Democrats Jon Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock, respectively, after each candidate failed to get enough votes on election day to win immediately. Second round elections are on January 5.
FACEBOOK BREAKS THE PROHIBITION OF POLITICAL ADVERTISING FOR GEORGIAN RUNOFFS
From left to right: Rev. Raphael Warnock, Jon Ossoff, Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Sen. David Perdue. (Photo illustration / Getty images)
If Democrats win both contests, the Senate will see a 50-50 tie between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party’s senators, which include the independent Sens. Bernie Sanders and Angus King. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would represent a potential tie-breaker vote, giving Democrats control over the legislative and executive branches.
Publicly available Facebook advertising spending data shows that several top politicians have used the races and candidates to raise funds for their own PACs, the Daily Beast reported on Wednesday.
They include members of both parties, such as Sens. Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and Kirsten Gillibrand, and new members of the House, who have not yet been inducted into Congress. And they include President Trump. They could still use the money raised for their PACs to campaign on behalf of Georgia’s candidates, but most will be controlled by their respective committees.
When Project Lincoln, an anti-Trump political action committee founded by conservatives, tweeted the story of the Daily Beast, another Twitter user pointed to the Peach State group’s own fundraiser.
“The Lincoln Project raised $ 4.8 million between November 24 and December 16, promoting the Georgia Senate runoff elections,” wrote Rob Pyers of the non-partisan California Target Book, which monitors and reports on political campaigns. “Since then, she has spent $ 1.1 million in independent expenses on these races and paid Steve Schmidt $ 1.5 million.”
Schmidt, co-founder of Project Lincoln, was a Republican strategist for years before breaking with the party because of President Trump. The Lincoln Project did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News.
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Georgia’s own candidates raised record sums before the second round.
Ossoff and Warnock raised more than $ 100 million each in the past two months. In the same period, Perdue and Loeffler raised more than $ 60 million each.
The previous quarterly fundraising record for a Senate campaign was $ 57 million.
Samuel Dorman of Fox News and the Associated Press contributed to this report.