Been tracking Virginia voter turnout for NBC News all day We've gotten data from 86 of the 133 jurisdictions In communities that have traditionally supported Dems, turnout is ~87% of the number of people who voted in 2025, whereas GOP jurisdictions it's ~96% www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru...

Tom Steyer has enough money - and a sophisticated enough campaign - that he's targeting different ads on Facebook + Instagram at people with different jobs. The targeting indicates he's targeting people in the film industry, folks that work as home health aides, and teachers

Here's the final update regarding spending on Facebook + Instagram political ads ahead of tomorrow's Virginia redistricting election Saw a significant uptick in spending by those advocating for people to vote no at the end (& found a bunch more advertisers advocating no votes).

Hadn't realized this until I just looked - digital advertisers are spending A TON of money on Google political ads Can credit competitive primaries, PAC spending & shift in consumer behavior Year to date spending in 2026 recently surpassed 2020 to become largest year of spending

So much fun to guest judge this @upenn.edu data contest led by @mrarenge.bsky.social. Fascinating: there are more accidents on @philadelphiaeagles.bsky.social game days compared to similar days without. But actually fewer drunk driving crashes! (Probably because more people are out & about)

Swalwell was spending ~$8.5K a day over the last few days on Facebook + Instagram ads - which isn't a ton, but isn't nothing He spent ~$94K so far this year on Meta political ads And was spending more this year, in his run for #CAGov, than back when he ran for President in 2020

All of the paid digital ads that Eric Swalwell's campaign was running on Facebook/Instagram (including some running earlier today) have stopped running & their status is set to "Inactive" It's unclear if this is a temporary pause, a permanent pause or a quick of the Meta archive

Was curious about spending on Facebook/Instagram political ads mentioning "Ice" Spending has dropped from high point, but is still elevated 4% of all money spent this year mentioned Ice Advertisers spent at least $12.8M so far in 2026 Last graphic is just spending from last month by advertiser

I've been tracking Election Day voter turnout all day for @nbcnews.com in the #GA14 special election. More people are voting today than voted during the first round on March 10. www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru...

Do we think the GOP is worried about tomorrow's #GA14 runoff? American Mission, the pro-AI group, spent $182K on Google ads adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/A... Conservatives for American Excellence spent $64K adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/A... MTG won this seat by ~30 points in '24

On Tuesday, Wisconsin will vote for a new State Supreme Court justice - just like they did last year In last year's hotly contested election, spending on Meta political ads topped out at $290K in the badger state on a single day So far, this year's high water mark has been $66K on a single day

🚨 The group Justice for Democracy just started running this paid digital ad in Virginia The ad uses images from the Civil Rights era to try to convince voters to vote **against** the redistricting effort in Virginia (the GOP position) The ad is only running in very specific communities

Digital political advertisers spent at least $27.4M on Facebook/Instagram ads linking to ActBlue in Q1 of this year (that's +5x what was spent on these ads in Q1 of 2022) Didn't see as big of an uptick as I was expecting for the end of the quarter - that's usually the high point

Spending on Facebook + Instagram political ads in the United States just recently passed $150M for the year (likely happened a few days ago...but Meta didn't post accurate daily spending data for Mar 18-21) Puts spending this year ~$35M ahead of where we were at the same point in 2022 & 2024

Pete Buttigieg has seen an uptick in his spending on Facebook + Instagram ads as we approach the Q1 fundraising deadline Spent well over $1M on Meta ads this year (exact number is higher than presented below since we're missing 4 days of accurate spending data from Meta)

Finally updated the dashboard tracking spending on geotargeted digital political ads in specific Congressional Districts (Meta didn't update their data for a while...producing an unavoidable gap) ~$50M spent on Meta + Google ads targeting CDs this cycle aarenge.shinyapps.io/2026_meta_CD...

The group DemsVote just started running this new paid digital on Snapchat in Wisconsin ahead of the State Supreme Court race on April 7th. The ad is running statewide & is being targeted at people whose are interests include: - Clubbers & Party People - Hip-Hop Music Fans

We're now on the 7th incomplete daily update from the Meta political ad archive where every advertiser is recorded as spending less than $100😑 Paused updating this interactive visualization tracking Meta political ad spending since the data clearly isn't accurate: rpubs.com/aarenge/face...

NEW: The NRCC just started running this new paid digital ad on Facebook and Instagram earlier today blaming Democrats for long TSA lines at airports. The ads are likely only running in very specific Congressional Districts across the country (we'll know more in a few days)

Meta is having issues with their political ad archive Haven't updated audience targeting data since Mar11 (usually 3-4 days behind) Daily ad library data posted for Mar18. Says no advertiser spent more than $100 Day before political advertisers collectively spent $1.9M, with largest spending $93K

The amount of money spent on Facebook/Instagram political digital ads this past Monday was more than the equivalent day from the past 7 years Spending on Meta political ads in 2026 has been elevated, but has usually been less than same day from 2020 See more rpubs.com/aarenge/face...

Graham Platner has spent ~$70K on paid digital ads running on YouTube so far this month **All of them** have been targeted solely at Maine women Not a single one of the 42 digital ads in the Google database are targeted at men See for yourself: adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/A... #MESen

👀 Unity First PAC - which is supporting Maryland Governor Wes Moore - just started running their first nationwide fundraising digital ad today on Google. The group also launched a page with Meta on February 26, but has yet to run any ads through Meta's platforms just yet.

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

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

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

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...

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

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

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

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...

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.

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...

I guess if you have a video endorsement from Trump, you run it as an ad, no matter how old it is Colton Moore - who's running in #GA14 to replace MTG in Congress - recently started running this video featuring Trump as an ad on Meta. The video was originally released in Aug 2023

Some of this could be related to scam advertisements on the platforms, but it seems notable that spending on paid Facebook + Instagram political ads is tracking much higher this year than daily spending from both 2022 + 2024 Interactive visualization: rpubs.com/aarenge/face...

Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin spent $36K on Facebook + Instagram ads on Thursday (the most recently available data) Slotkin was running this fundraising ad There's only been one day over the last 6.5 years where she's spent more (happened on Oct 10 during her 2024 Senate bid)

Mark Kelly spent $113K on Facebook + Instagram political ads this past Tuesday (the most recently available data) So far this year - and I have data for less than 2 weeks - he's collectively spent over $800K on Meta digital ads. Tuesday was the 4th time in 2026 he's spent $100K+ on a single day

Mark Kelly spent $66K on Meta ads on Thursday bringing his 4 day total to $511K In the 6.5 years I've collected this data, there's only been 80 pages that spent $500K+ on Meta ads over 4 consecutive days Kelly did it in Sept '20 4 pages that did it last year including Gavin Newsom + Jon Ossoff

Mark Kelly spent $137K on Facebook + Instagram political ads on Wednesday (the most recently available daily data) That means that since Hegseth started the military demotion proceedings on Monday, Kelly has spent ~$446K on Meta ads Kelly is up for re-election in 2028

One of our Penn PORES students traveled to swing states to talk with young people who don't answer polls, don't follow political news, etc Talked to them in laundromats, bus stops, fast food restaurants & turned conversations into this podcast Highly recommend creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/...

On Monday - the day Secretary Hegseth moved to demote Mark Kelly - the Arizona Senator spent $120K on Facebook + Instagram ads This was his second highest day of spending since the 2020 election & his 9th highest day of spending overall in the data I've collected (since summer 2019)

2025 was an off year for national elections but we still saw a descent amount of spent on digital political ads last year 🧵will highlight the spending trends by platform TLDR: 2025 Overall Spending Meta (Facebook + Instagram) - $582M Google (YouTube) - $182.8M Twitter/X - $12.8M Snapchat - $3.6M