CNN
—
Democrats are rolling out an unprecedented digital advertising campaign in the final weeks of the presidential election, spending hundreds of millions in targeted efforts that the party hopes will tip the balance in one of the closest elections in U.S. history. I’m spending dollars.
This effort is being led by Future Forward PAC (FF PAC), the largest single-candidate super PAC in the 2024 election. And the group is moving away from traditional political advertising by focusing half of its $450 million budget on digital platforms. That is said to include the largest political ad buy in YouTube history, creating highly targeted content to capture and hold the attention of voters.
FF PAC’s approach, especially in the final weeks of the campaign, is aimed at reaching out to non-partisan voters, including young voters, especially young women, black voters, Latino voters, and other key demographics that Vice President Kamala Harris needs to shape her victory. It has focused on digital advertising aimed at political audiences. Union.
Super PACs are prohibited from directly coordinating with the campaigns they support. But FF PAC has leveraged its size to zero in on the economy and abortion as its top messaging priorities, creating and testing more than 1,000 unique ads. And finally, the group urges Democrats not to overemphasize attacks on Donald Trump’s character and fitness for the presidency, including recent messages from the Harris campaign calling the former president a fascist. He advises keeping the focus on financial health and reproductive rights.
The group’s staggering war chest is funded by some of the Democratic Party’s wealthiest supporters, and outside groups like FF PAC spend unlimited amounts of money working to influence the outcome of elections. They take advantage of loose campaign finance regulations that allow them to raise and spend money.
It’s an effort that reflects some of the key dynamics in the 2024 race, which will feature big money, transformative media, and analytics-driven campaigns. Opposing the Democratic Party is a network of Republican groups that are also breaking new ground on the American political stage.
Next week’s election will be a test for the powerful FF PAC and its digital investments, measuring the effectiveness of the cutting-edge tools and tactics available in modern campaigns.
The Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission transformed U.S. elections, opening the floodgates to groups like FF PAC, which were allowed to accept unlimited donations from wealthy mega-donors; No limits were placed on the amount of spending that could influence election campaigns.
In the years since, these groups have proliferated and dominated political advertising, pushing U.S. election spending to new heights. The 2024 election is expected to bring in $10.2 billion worth of campaign ads, breaking the record set in the 2020 election, according to ad tracking firm AdImpact.
The Biden-Harris ticket selected FF PAC from a large universe of outside groups in July 2023 as the super PAC to be officially endorsed for the 2024 campaign. The group has played an unprecedented role in this year’s White House race, focusing the Democratic Party’s outside efforts in sharp contrast to the fragmented network of pro-Trump outside groups.
From the beginning of 2023 to the end of the most recent FEC reporting period, October 16, FF PAC reported raising $394 million and disbursing $373 million, including – Includes $38 million before President Biden withdrew from the campaign in late July. An aide to the group said the group’s budget for the focused general election between Harris and Trump totals $450 million, mainly in seven major cities: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina and Georgia. He said he was targeting battleground states.
The group receives most of its funding from Future Forward USA Action, the Democratic Party’s dark money hub. As a nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization, the organization is not required to disclose its donors and can make large donations. Even super PACs like FF PAC. Among those donors is billionaire former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who gave $50 million to dark money networks this year.
FF PAC had reported receiving $128 million from the black finance parent organization by October 16th. Top donors to FF PAC include Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskowitz, who has donated $38 million. LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman has donated more than $10 million. Bloomberg also contributed $19 million directly to FF PAC in disclosed contributions.
With a large military budget, FF PAC faces challenges in distributing resources effectively and efficiently. As part of our response, we are operating a massive advertising lab on an unprecedented scale. The group created and tested more than 1,000 unique ads and measured their effectiveness in swaying voters. After surveying voters who had seen the ads, the group focused on messages about the economy and abortion.
That’s why the super PAC is urging Democrats to echo Harris’ final message. An email from FF PAC to Democrats containing advice regarding the Oct. 25 message included the following warning: This theme is less compelling than the contrasting messages that feature Harris’ economic plan and her promise to protect reproductive rights. ”
These lines of attack, which focus on Mr. Trump’s character and cite criticism from former government officials, feature prominently in recent ads by the Harris campaign, such as the one that began airing over the weekend that A spot was aired that included audio from a retired aide. Marine Gen. John Kelly told the New York Times that the former president “certainly fits the general definition of a fascist.”
Appearing on CNN on Monday, Harris campaign spokesperson Ian Sams responded to FF PAC’s claims, saying, “Americans have the ability to handle many things at once and have many different concerns about the country and America.” There are a lot of people who are.” future. ”
As part of its strategy, FF PAC has launched a series of ads featuring candidates discussing tax policy. The group had received positive feedback about ads that included Harris’ remarks, rather than the dramatic narrator who often appears in political scenes.
Voter testimonials are another important tactic, with FF PAC producing dozens of spots featuring voters reacting dissatisfied to clips of President Trump praising his “ridiculously rich” donors. This has become an ongoing method of attack.
Additionally, reflecting its efforts to reach key groups such as young women, FF PAC ran a TikTok ad targeting “MomTok” viewers with Harris’s “Up to $6,000 Tax Cut for Families.” Promoted the proposal.
The super PAC’s ads also highlight abortion rights, a top issue for Democratic voters that contributes to the deepening political gender divide. Many of those ads feature women and medical professionals warning against abortion regulations and criticizing President Trump, who appointed three of the five Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. I am doing it.
As the media landscape transforms in 2024, TV advertising still collects the most revenue. Of the roughly $2.9 billion spent on presidential campaign ads so far in 2023, more than $2.2 billion went to TV ads, according to data from AdImpact. FF PAC has also spent hundreds of millions of dollars on television, but digital platforms are where the group wants to make its mark.
“Our programs aim to reach voters where they are and on the screens they use,” Margit Westerman, FF PAC’s digital director, said in a statement. “This means an approach where people hear surround sound while watching their favorite streaming shows, watching the latest YouTube clips, or visiting the websites they frequent. We spent months figuring out what the content was and found the content to be compelling as long as we were sure people would see it.”
This includes the $44 million acquisition of YouTube, targeting a younger and more diverse audience. And the campaign is targeting high-profile live events, starting with the Olympics later this summer and including the NFL’s “Sunday Ticket” through Election Day.
FF PAC also earned ad time on popular gaming platforms such as Unity and Frameplay, targeting young male voters, a key area of interest for the Harris campaign. And FF PAC has struggled to reach screens, winning ad time on premium streaming TV platforms such as Hulu, Disney, Peacock, WB/Discovery/Max, and Univision. (Warner Bros./Discovery is CNN’s parent company.)
The group estimates it has delivered 3.71 billion high-quality video impressions to date. Many of FF PAC’s 30-second television ads have 15-second and 6-second versions designed for non-skippable slots on digital platforms.
Even on traditional TV, FF PAC uses its resources creatively, spending millions of dollars on national ad buys, airing everywhere but buying ad time from local stations that get hammered in the final spurts of the race. has become a cheaper way to reach battleground states.
FF PAC’s digital advertising efforts helped the group dominate its Republican opponents on major platforms in the final weeks of the race.
In the first week of October, FF PAC spent $6.7 million on ads on Google and its affiliated platforms, including YouTube, while major pro-Trump advertisers spent about $1.5 million. The following week, FF PAC increased its spending to nearly $9 million, while major pro-Trump advertisers spent about $1.2 million. In the third week of October, FF PAC spent $10.5 million, while the largest pro-Trump advertiser spent about $2 million. And in Week 4, FF PAC led the Google platform with $12.3 million, while top Republican advertisers spent $3.5 million.
While FF PAC has a unique role as the leading pro-Harris super PAC, Republicans have taken a different approach, deploying a network of large super PACs, each with a share of the pro-Trump message. There is.
MAGA Inc., Preserve America, America PAC, Restoration PAC, and Right For America PAC have collectively raised $718 million and spent $709 million from early 2023 to mid-October. did. The largest company, MAGA, reported that Trump spent about $113 million before winning the Republican presidential nomination.
While each group is allocating a portion of its spending to digital advertising, FF PAC outspent total spending on Google platforms by $37.7 million to $11.4 million through Oct. 27. Over the past 30 days, these pro-Trump groups led by FF PAC on Facebook have raised a total of approximately $4.8 million to $2.3 million (including approximately $700,000 in advertising from MAGA Inc.’s product site).
America PAC, one of the pro-Trump groups, has received nearly $120 million from the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, and has taken an iconoclastic approach to its spending. is different from that of FF PAC.
Mr. Musk’s group is investigating the limits of weakening campaign finance enforcement, including $1 million in daily donations that have come under intense scrutiny from the Justice Department and are the subject of a civil lawsuit by the Philadelphia district attorney. America’s PAC has also undertaken an unprecedented on-the-ground effort, spending more than $70 million on campaigning and field operations in battleground states, a major boost for the Trump campaign.
Some of it is inevitable. The former president’s campaign was dramatically denounced by Harris’ team, giving Democratic candidates significantly more campaign cash to spend on staff, door-knocking, phone banking and other polling efforts.
FF PAC has no comparable turnout efforts, leaving traditional campaign activities to the cash-flush Harris operation. But the super PAC is betting its innovative and unprecedented digital advertising program will help Harris end what is shaping up to be the closest election in the country’s history.
