Congressman Wesley Hunt - who is in a tough battle with John Cornyn and Ken Paxton for the GOP #TXSen primary - just started running this new paid digital ad where he appears along side two donkeys.
Hunt uses the Democratic Party symbol as a way to call Cornyn a Democrat
NEW: Jasmine Crockett just started running a new attack ad going after James Talarico in the #TXSen race. It started running as a paid ad on Facebook + Instagram today.
"Talarico is just talk. Crockett is all fight."
Talarico spent $430K on Weds & $225K on Thurs running paid digital ads across Facebook + Instagram (he's been largely fundraising).
That brings the 3 day total post the Colbert segment getting pulled to $947K (which is a lot of money on paid digital ads for a Senate primary)
#TXSen
There was also an uptick in spending on Meta political ads by the Talarico campaign in Texas after the interview got pulled of the air
They spent ~$55K on Meta political ads on Tues. ~19% of their total spending that day was spent in Texas, while 81% was spent out of state
On Tuesday - the day after James Talarico's interview with Colbert was pulled from CBS - Talarico's campaign spent $292K on Facebook/Instagram ads (most were fundraising ads)
Was ~14% of *all* spending on Meta political ads that day
Campaign spent $57K on Google fundraising ads as well
#TXSen
The ads from American Sovereignty (the advertiser spending the most on ads mentioning ICE over the past month) is running pro-ICE related ads in specific swing states
Looking at the paid political ad data from Facebook/Instagram, we have seen quite an uptick in spending on ads mentioning "Ice" (accounts for ~4.6% of all political ad spending on Meta ads this year!)
Last graph shows political advertiser spending from on ads mentioning ICE over the past month
About 5 hours ago, James Talarico started running this digital fundraising ad on Facebook + Instagram
He's already spent ~$50K on the ad. It's running nationwide
He's fundraising over his appearance on Stephen Colbert
"Trump's FCC tried to censor me & I need your help"
#TXSen
With early voting starting tomorrow, here's spending on Facebook/Instagram ads in TX for the #TXSen Dem primary
Forward Texas just started advertising
Talarico has been promoting rallies + events
Crockett started running her first mobilization ad a few days ago
Here's the other ad they're running.
There's a page on Facebook/Instagram called American Sovereignty that's been running pro-ICE ads
They've spent at least $125K over the past week (which is a lot for digital)
Ads only running in GA, MI, + NC (all states with key Senate races)
The page was created 2.5 weeks ago
For those watching the close #NJ11 race, here's an update on spending on targeted Meta + Google ads that were run by political advertisers in the CD
Data is always delayed - this is as of Saturday.
UDP saw big uptick in spending on Saturday.
More: aarenge.shinyapps.io/2026_meta_CD...
Due to the way the data is released - and the amount of time it takes to run the code to generate daily insights for all 435 districts - the data presented in that dashboard is always going to be a few days behind.
The data above is as of January 29.
Here's the final update to the dashboard tracking targeted Meta + Google digital ads running in CDs ahead of tomorrow's #NJ11 primary
The top two daily advertisers running targeted digital ads were United Democracy Project (AIPAC) + Article One PAC
More: aarenge.shinyapps.io/2026_meta_CD...
The ~$1.3M the DNC spent in January on Facebook + Instagram ads linking to ActBlue is the most they've spent in a single month (per data from Meta)
They've run ads linking to ActBlue on the pages Democrats, Joe Biden + Kamala Harris in the past. This graph combines that spending
Top spenders on ActBlue linking Meta ads so far in 2026 (cont):
Earle Ford - $61K
Manny Rutinel for CO - $54K
David Hogg - $53K
Zach Wahls - $51K
VoteVets - $49K
Dr. Annie Andrews - $46K
John Hickenlooper - $41K
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - $40K
Sarah McBride - $40K
Top spenders on ActBlue linking Meta ads so far in 2026 (cont):
Graham Platner - $149K
Shawn Harris for GA - $140K
Elissa Slotkin - $130K
Alexander Vindman - $113K
Ilhan Omar - $113K
Jasmine Crockett - $111K
Pete Buttigieg - $103K
314 Action - $100K
Amy Klobuchar - $61K
Top spenders on ActBlue linking Meta ads so far in 2026:
DNC - $1.3M
Jon Ossoff - $841K
James Talarico - $802K
Mark Kelly - $655K
State+Local Election Alliance - $643K
Women's March - $419K
George Conway - $327K
Josh Shapiro - $285K
Mary Peltola - $200K
Mallory McMorrow - $175K
Digital political advertisers spent at least $8.2M on Facebook/Instagram ads linking to ActBlue last month (that's 4x more than January 2022)
Saw uptick toward the end of the month - bringing daily ActBlue spending close to what was spent in June 2024 right before Biden/Trump debate
Now that we have a full month of data - seems important to point out that spending on Facebook + Instagram digital political ads is tracking much higher than in other recent years
Spending is ~40% higher than at this point from 2022
It's unclear the exact geotargeting on Facebook/Instagram (won't know that info for days due to how Meta releases micro-geotargeting data).
On Google (ie YouTube), the ad is geotargeted at very specific communities (multiple versions of the ad are running with slightly different geotargets)
Jasmine Crockett's first issue oriented ad of the #TXSen Democratic primary just started running on Facebook + Google within the last few hours (Instagram versions of the ad are currently inactive).
The ad touches on her vote against ICE funding + support for impeaching DHS Secretary Kristi Noem
While there's noticeable uptick in spending across a lot of advertisers, some of this was driven by the Progressive Turnout Project (which spent $225K) & Jon Ossoff (who spent $167K).
5th highest day of spending for Progressive Turnout Project
3rd highest day ever for Ossoff
Digital political advertisers spent $2.4M on Facebook + Instagram ads on Saturday - the day Alex Pretti was killed
This is ~50% increase from the day before - and in line with spending from 2020 (!) which includes a contested presidential primary
Interactive: rpubs.com/aarenge/face...
NRSC did launch a micro-site that the ad links out to with this info (clearly paid for by the NRSC).
The website URL was registered 7 days ago, on January 21.
I guess the NRSC might be worried about Montana
Per data from Google, the NRSC started running this banner ad about the MT Senate race a few days ago
Haven't spent much (less than $100) and they're running the ad nationwide (which seems like a mistake)
adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/A...
Kat Abughazaleh - congressional candidate in #IL09 - just started running this prosecute ICE digital ad on YouTube.
She's one of the first politicians to run such a paid digital ad.
Due to the way this geotargeting data is released from Meta + Google (plus the amount of time it takes to run the code to update the dashboard visualizing data for all 435 CDs), this data is always going to be a few days behind. The data above is as of Monday, January 19
Seeing uptick in spending on targeted digital ads (Facebook, Instagram, Google) running in #NJ11 (Mikie Sherrill's old district)
Primary is on Feb 5
Most of uptick is coming from United Democracy Project (ie AIPAC) which is running anti-Tom Malinowski ads
aarenge.shinyapps.io/2026_meta_CD...
At first I thought it was AI generated (but it wasn't flagged as such in the Meta archive).
Then got totally thrown when I saw the final slate on the video saying it was sponsored by "Donald Trump for President 2024"
Anyway, here's the video:
