Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) needs your help to keep the US Senate in the hands of Republicans. So shouted a handful of Facebook ads that Cruz’s campaign committee bought this month. But none of them were actually raising money for Republican candidates in Georgia. Instead, every penny donated went directly to … Cruz.
Cruz’s campaign bought 15 separate ads on Facebook in the past two weeks, each featuring a video of the senator dramatically exaggerating the need to hold two seats in the U.S. Senate in Georgia’s runoff contests.
“Weapons capture, tax increases, open borders and stacking of the Supreme Court. This is the radical Democratic agenda if they win the Georgia Senate election, ”said Cruz.
He asked for five dollars in contributions to his new “Keep Georgia Red fund”. But Facebook users who clicked on the online donations page – and read the fine print at the bottom – would see that the real beneficiary was Cruz’s own campaign committee, not Sens. Kelly Loeffler or David Perdue, the two Republicans running for re-election in Georgia.
Cruz is just one of several elected officials from both parties who use Georgia’s competitive – and extremely expensive – runoff contests to raise money for themselves. Increasingly, these officials are doing this on Facebook, where a political ad ban instituted in late October was lifted this month, but only for ads in Georgia.
This led to a wave of Facebook ads invoking statewide Senate contests on behalf of out-of-state political candidates. On some occasions, the ads don’t even mention runoff contests, but are targeted at users in Georgia in an effort to explore the state’s specific political advertising policy on Facebook.
Facebook did not answer questions about this apparent gap. But Cruz and others’ efforts illustrate the difficulties the company has faced in developing a political advertising policy that is not criticized as too restrictive or too easy to exploit.
The social media giant’s advertising ban, designed to limit misinformation related to the election result, temporarily closed a gigantic political fundraising tool near and after the election. When the company eased the ban this month on ads in Georgia, the campaigns took the chance to return to the Facebook advertising game. Last month, the National Republican Senatorial Committee encouraged its members to use grassroots donor enthusiasm around the second round to help build their own fundraising programs.
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell paved the way for his caucus. His campaign has been sending some text messages and ad serving from Google focused on Georgia with links to a page on the GOP WinRed fundraising platform that says the donations will benefit McConnell’s own campaign committee.
According to a source familiar with the deal, McConnell’s Georgia-focused fundraising efforts actually served to cover the cost of using his huge email lists and text messages to solicit donations that are split between the senator and the two Republican candidates for Senate in Georgia. A spokesman for McConnell said his post-election day fundraising efforts, subsidized by his direct Georgia-focused fundraising, have yielded more than $ 3.4 million for Loeffler and Perdue.
These divided fundraising efforts are a key mechanism for boosting grassroots financial support for Senate candidates in Georgia, according to guidance published by WinRed. Some members of Congress took advantage of this strategy. Representatives Cathy McMorris Rogers (R-WA) and Ashley Hinson (R-IA), for example, bought Facebook ads this month with links to dividing donation pages income equally between its own campaign committees and those of Perdue and Loeffler.
Many, however, continue to direct donations exclusively to their own campaigns or political vehicles. And it is not just Republicans who take action. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), for example, ran two Facebook ads this month with urgent calls to financially support Democratic Senate candidates in Georgia.
“If you want to retake the Senate and retire Mitch McConnell, the most important thing you can do now is donate to elect Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in Georgia,” say the ads. The ads lead to a donation page that specifies that the funds will not go to Ossoff or Warnock, but to Gillibrand’s political action committee, the Off the Sidelines PAC.
Gillibrand’s PAC exists largely to direct funds to other Democratic candidates, so it is not inconceivable that part of the money raised through these ads will support Democrats in Georgia. In fact, PAC donated to Ossoff and Warnock before the general election. But by law, he can only give each of them $ 5,000 before the runoff for the second round in January, probably less than what PAC is raising with funds for the Peach State Senate disputes.
Then there are those who are trying to raise money from all political activity in Georgia, without even pretending that they care about the second round.
Congressman-elect Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) bought a handful of Facebook ads last week, in which he promised to use his new post in a fruitless and conspiratorial attempt to annul the 2020 presidential election. “Donate below to join the fight and help save our American lifestyle! ” he read. Another five Cawthorn ads asked people to “defend freedom and defend Georgia!” But, like everyone else, they linked to Cawthorn’s own donations page. Cawthorn will not be sworn in until this weekend.
President Donald Trump himself led the group in using disputes by the Georgia Senate to raise money for its own political efforts. His political team has been buying ads from Google and sending fundraising emails for weeks, declaring the urgent need to keep the majority of the Republican Party in the Senate and asking for contributions from their own political groups. But the fine print of those requests makes it clear that a large part of the change will go to Trump’s own committee and a smaller part to the Republican National Committee.
The tactic has spread even more widely since Facebook opened its political ads for appeals related to Georgia. Like Cruz, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) ran a series of announcements this month asking for donations on behalf of his Republican colleagues, Loeffler and Perdue.
“Democrats, with their radical agenda, seek to destroy our country. The center of that struggle is now in Georgia. We must maintain the Senate, ”say ten Facebook ads run by Lee’s campaign this month. “Join the fight by contributing what you can.”
The Ten Lee campaign ads ran this month with links to the senator’s WinRed page. His office insists that the money is finding its way into the next disputes.
“Senator Lee’s multiple Facebook campaigns have raised tens of thousands of dollars for Georgia’s runoff candidates,” a spokesman for Lee said in an email. “Some of these campaigns offered donors the opportunity to donate to Senator Lee, but less than $ 100 was created that way. “
But the language on the WinRed page promoted in Lee’s recent Facebook ads is quite clear: “Your contribution will benefit Mike Lee’s friends.”