Have you heard? Democrats are in array – with a House majority and exactly 50 senators, the Dem-controlled Congress and the Biden administration passed a historic, sweeping economic relief package this week that is more than twice the size of big as the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
From direct checks to local relief and vaccine funding, the bill has a lot to love - but as many have pointed out in our echo chambers, Americans need to know who was responsible for these much needed government actions to help families and small businesses, and who opposed them every step of the way. In this week’s FWIW, we take a look at how Democrats and progressive groups are messaging about the American Rescue Plan online and how the right-wing media ecosystem is responding - if at all - to a piece of legislation that is extremely popular, even among Republican voters.
But first…
BY THE NUMBERS
This week, we’re getting the first look at political ad spending on Facebook since they abruptly lifted their ban last Wednesday. Here’s how it breaks down:
While most political campaigns and party committees have yet to restart their Facebook ad programs, advocacy groups and grifters didn’t waste any time getting their spending back on. The MyPillow guy, for example, has now partnered with The RF Angle — a right-wing site founded by Students for Trump co-founder Ryan Fournier — to pump out disinformation and keep up their Trumpian grift.
Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity is so far the only big Facebook spender on the right running ads criticizing the American Rescue Plan - but more on that below.
Here are the top political spenders on Google last week…
…and here are the top spenders on political ads on Snapchat so far this year:
The new big spender on Snap this week is SEIU, which spent nearly $18k recently on thesetwo slick ads advocating for a $15 minimum wage targeting adults in West Virginia, Phoenix, Milwaukee, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, and Bangor, ME.
AMERICA: RESCUED
Child poverty cut in half. $1,400 checks for over 150 million Americans. Vaccine manufacturing and distribution funding. State + local government support. Extended unemployment benefits. Rental assistance. A lot of Americans impacted most by this crisis year are about to get a lot of sorely needed overdue help because Democrats won control of the federal government between last November and January of this year, and it is incumbent upon the party, its members, and progressive groups to take their rightful credit for it.
That work has to start now. Our friend Dan Pfeiffer laid down the stakes pretty clearly in Sunday’s issue of The Message Box newsletter, and he shared some steps that progressives can take in our daily lives to promote the ARP:
“I spent much of 2009 and 2010 banging my head against the proverbial wall because not enough people knew about how Barack Obama had helped prevent the economy from tumbling into a second Great Depression. Let’s not do that again. The dominance of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms since that time has mostly been a disaster for the world. But the one upside is that all of us now have the ability to help Joe Biden spread the word about the American Rescue Plan.”
Dan is absolutely right that each of us have a role to play in talking about the ARP to our social circles, and it’s especially easy because there is so much good in this package. Recent polling indicates that the more people hear about the ARP, the more they like it. It’s probably not a coincidence, then, that the right-wing media ecosystem isn’t touching it. While the House embarked on final passage of the bill on Wednesday, here’s what some of the biggest right-wing sites had on their front pages:
Even the Republicans and conservative pundits actually trying their often effective fearmongering schtick are running up against a wall. It seems like the best they can muster for now is “Pelosi Payoff” and “Blue State Bailout”, the latter of which they used against Biden in 2020, but they may want to ask Majority Leader Chuck Schumer how that one played out. They’re even trying to bring pork back into the lexicon! But judging by engagement data on CrowdTangle, it looks like the GOP base isn’t biting:
Over the past week, the top 100 Facebook posts featuring “American Rescue Plan” - almost all of which came from Democratic and progressive Pages - garnered over 3.3 million interactions, while the top 100 posts opposing the bill only got about 830k interactions. And while pro-ARP posts are wildly outperforming anti-ARP posts, keep in mind that the GOP’s latest culture war grievance content still gets the most engagement overall according to Alex Witt in CAP Action’s “What’s Trending?” newsletter (which is exactly why they push these buttons, btw).
FWIW, here’s a taste of some of the top-performing content from Democrats and the Left about the ARP from the past week.
The ad wars
Of course, though, the GOP’s campaign arms and outside groups are now starting to invest in digital ads to try to cut through the noise. Like we mentioned earlier, Americans for Prosperity is one of the few groups on the Right running ads against the ARP. They stopped running the below ads last week, after the Senate passed the bill, but these ads primarily targeted older Americans in Montana, West Virginia, Georgia, and Arizona. American Action Network also spent about $10k on two Facebook ads targeting Reps. Jared Golden of Maine and Ron Kind of Wisconsin.
On the Left, the DSCC has already committed to a “five-figure” digital ad buy targeting Ron Johnson and Marco Rubio, two of the only GOP incumbents in competitive states running for re-election. Priorities USA also launched a new ad as part of their efforts to promote the Biden-Harris agenda, and House Majority Forward is spending $1.4 million on ads supporting nine vulnerable House Democrats who advocated for the ARP.
On progressive media
While plenty of folks on the Left aren’t happy that the ARP doesn’t include a $15 minimum wage or $2,000 checks, left-wing media outlets are also singing the bill’s praises. Here’s what they’re saying:
Finally, while the Biden administration is using its channels to sell the ARP, they’re also deploying an influencer marketing strategy to reach beyond their traditional audiences.
If you missed last week’s issue of FWIW, we broke down why campaigns and political groups should consider building out an influencer strategy. To learn more about how and why your organization should start your own influencer program, check out our comprehensive Influencer Toolkit.
