Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) needs your help to keep the U.S. Senate in Republican hands. That’s how a handful of Facebook ads popped up that Cruz’s campaign committee bought this month. But none of them were actually raising money for Republican candidates in Georgia. Instead, every penny given went directly to … Cruz.
The Cruz campaign bought 15 different ads on Facebook over the past two weeks, each with a video of the senator dramatically pointing out the need to hold two U.S. Senate seats in Georgia betting contests.
“Take up arms, raise taxes, open borders and stack the Supreme Court. That is the radical Democratic agenda if they win the Georgia Senate election, “Cruz said.
He asked for five dollar contributions to his new “Keep Georgia Red” fund. But Facebook users who clicked on the online donation page — and read the fine print at the bottom — would see that the real beneficiary was Cruz’s own campaign committee, not the Kelly Loeffler or David sensors. Perdue, the two Republicans who ran for re-election in Georgia. .
Cruz is just one of many elected officials from both parties who use Georgia’s competitive and extremely expensive contests to raise money for themselves. Increasingly, these officials are doing so on Facebook, where this month the ban on political ads instituted in late October was lifted, but only for ads in Georgia.
This sparked an eruption of Facebook ads invoking Senate contests in the state on behalf of out-of-state political candidates. At times, the ads don’t even mention runoff contests, but are aimed at users in Georgia in an effort to exploit Facebook’s state-specific political advertising policy.
Facebook did not answer questions about this apparent loophole. But the efforts of Cruz and others illustrate the difficulties the company has had in crafting a political advertising policy that is not criticized for being too restrictive or too easy to exploit.
The social media giant’s advertising ban, designed to limit misinformation related to the election result, temporarily shut down a huge fundraising tool around and after the election. When the company lifted the ban this month for ads in Georgia, the campaigns jumped at the chance to return to the Facebook advertising game. Last month, the Republican National Senate Committee encouraged its members to use the enthusiasm of grassroots donors surrounding the runoff to help build their own fundraising programs.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has led the way for his group. His campaign has sent some text messages and posted Georgia-focused Google ads linking to a page on the GOP WinRed fundraising platform that says donations will benefit McConnell’s own campaign committee.
According to a source familiar with the deal, McConnell’s Georgia-centered fundraising efforts have served to cover the cost of using his massive email and text message lists to solicit donations that are shared between the senator and the two Republican Senate candidates in Georgia. A McConnell spokesman said his post-election fundraising efforts, funded by his Georgia-centered direct fundraiser, have contributed more than $ 3.4 million to Loeffler and Perdue.
These split fundraising efforts are a key mechanism for boosting grassroots financial support for Senate candidates in Georgia, according to guidelines published by WinRed. Some members of Congress have taken advantage of this strategy. Representatives of Cathy McMorris Rogers (R-WA) and Ashley Hinson (R-IA), for example, have bought Facebook ads this month linking to split donation pages the collection is uniform between its own campaign committees and those of Perdue and Loeffler.
Many, however, continue to direct donations exclusively to their own political campaigns or vehicles. And it’s not just Republicans involved in the act. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), for example, posted a couple of Facebook ads this month with urgent pleas to provide financial support to Democratic Senate candidates in Georgia.
“If you want to get the Senate back and remove Mitch McConnell, the only important thing you can do right now is give to elect Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in Georgia,” the announcements state. The announcements link to a donation page specifying that the funds will not go to Ossoff or Warnock, but to Gillibrand’s political action committee, Off the Sidelines PAC.
Gillibrand’s PAC exists largely to channel funds to other Democratic candidates, so it’s not inconceivable that some of the money raised through these announcements will support Georgia’s Democrats. In fact, the PAC made donations to Ossoff and Warnock before the general election. But by law, he can only give each of them $ 5,000 before the runoff contest in January, probably less than the PAC raises with appeals to contests in Peach’s state senate.
Then there are those who try to raise money from all political activity in Georgia without even pretending to worry about runoff.
Last week, MP-elect Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) bought a handful of Facebook ads in which she pledged to use her new message in an unsuccessful and conspiratorial attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. ” Make a donation below to join the fight and help save our American way of life! ” it was read. Five other Cawthorn ads called on people to “stand up for freedom and stand up for Georgia!” But, like all the others, they were linked to Cawthorn’s donations page. Cawthorn won’t even swear until this weekend.
President Donald Trump himself has led the group in using Georgia Senate contests to raise money for its own political efforts. His political team has been buying ads from Google for weeks and sending emails to raise funds declaring the urgent need to keep the Republican Party Senate majority and asking for contributions from his own political groups. But the small print of those requests makes it clear that a significant portion of the change will be for Trump’s own committee and a smaller portion for the Republican national committee.
The tactic has spread even more widely since Facebook opened its political ads to Georgia-related appeals. Like Cruz, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) has posted a large number of announcements this month calling for donations on behalf of his Republican colleagues, Loeffler and Perdue.
“Democrats, with their radical agenda, are trying to destroy our country. The center of this struggle is now in Georgia. We have to keep the Senate, ”say ten Facebook ads posted by the Lee campaign this month. “Join the fight by chipping in as much as you can.”
Ten Lee campaign ads linked to the Senator’s WinRed page are being released this month. His office insists that money finds its way to upcoming contests.
“Senator Lee’s multiple Facebook campaigns have raised tens of thousands of dollars for Georgia’s second-place candidates,” a Lee spokesman said in an email. “Some of these campaigns have offered donors the opportunity to give Senator Lee but less than $ 100. It’s been raised that way.”
But the language of the WinRed page promoted in Lee’s recent Facebook ads is pretty clear: “Your contribution will benefit Mike Lee’s friends.”