Digital ad spending data for the week of October 24 - 30
Top spenders last week include Green New Deal Network, Vote No to Protect Maine, Mainers for Local Power PAC, Climate Power, and the Environmental Voter Project
In the past week, we’ve seen a huge influx in GOTV ads from local climate and conservation groups across the country - but especially in Maine and Virginia - and we also saw that while national groups are keeping up the pressure on Democrats in Congress, polluter spending on Facebook has dropped to new lows. Let’s get into it.
A look at the top digital ad spenders nationwide
Here are the top 25 spenders nationwide on climate and energy-related ads on Facebook from last week:
Unsurprisingly, groups interested in this year’s elections appeared to dump the remainders of their Facebook ad budgets last week. This includes groups like Vote No to Protect Maine and Mainers for Local Power fighting over the hydro project in northern Maine, the Environmental Voter Project, the Virginia League of Conservation Voters, and other local conservation groups. We found that while the GOTV ads from these groups in Virginia mostly targeted young adults in the Commonwealth, the groups fighting over Question 1 in Maine targeted their ads at older Mainers.
Additionally, here’s how much major groups have spent week-to-week on Facebook ads related to climate, conservation, and energy. We noticed last week that ExxonMobil stopped their massive Facebook ad campaign almost as abruptly as they started it a couple weeks ago, and because of that, the polluters we track spent a record low of just $103,125 last week. Compare that to the $671,715 spent by climate groups last week
While Facebook ad spending by polluters plummeted thanks to Exxon dropping its campaigns, we’re seeing that climate groups have been steadily increasing their spending on the platform in recent weeks. Last week, the biggest increases in spending came from the Green New Deal Network and Climate Power, both of which are using their Facebook ads to keep up the pressure on specific congressional Democrats to pass climate and environmental provisions in President Joe Biden’s huge economic packages. Climate Power in particular has started targeting Reps. Kurt Schrader, Scott Peters, Ed Case, Stephanie Murphy, and Kathleen Rice.
Far and away the biggest spender on Google + YouTube ads last week was the center-left group Third Way, which ran four YouTube ads supporting Reps. Lucy McBath, Cindy Axne, Kathleen Rice, and Tom O’Halleran. They spent $65,700 on the four ads, one of which reads, “The stakes for jobs, the economy, and the climate have never been higher. That’s why Congresswoman Lucy McBath is fighting for tax cuts that will create more clean energy jobs in Georgia.”
It also looks like Clean Virginia invested $40,200 last week into YouTube ads supporting various Democratic candidates for the Virginia House of Delegates. You can check those out here. Finally, The Nature Conservancy broke their own record on the platform last week, spending $32,800 on more banner ads pressuring Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Bob Casey and Reps. Kurt Schrader, Tom O’Halleran, and Josh Gottheimer to “support climate action.”
Overall, here are the top 10 spenders on climate ads on Snapchat so far this year. We estimate that Clean Virginia spent $13,854 in the days leading up to this week’s election on Snapchat ads like this one that promote Democratic House of Delegates candidates in Virginia for confronting Dominion Energy. We also estimate that Vote No to Protect Maine nearly doubled its spending on the platform in the past week on ads like this one that highlight the economic and public health benefits of voting no on Question 1.
Climate, clean energy, and conservation ads in next year’s key states
We picked up a few new Facebook ads mentioning climate change, conservation, and/or energy in some of the biggest races Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
AZ-GOV: Katie Hobbs spent around $300 on six ads criticizing Republican candidate Kari Lake for holding a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago. The ad goes on to say that, “Katie’s running for Governor to protect our democracy, tackle climate change, and expand access to education and health care for all Arizonans.”
FL-GOV: Charlie Crist launched new fundraising ads highlighting the differences between himself and Gov. Ron DeSantis, saying the governor “is soft on COVID -- and he’s on the wrong side of climate change, voting rights, and reproductive rights.”
OH-SEN: In late October, Mike Gibbons spent around $500 on an ad dismissing the bipartisan infrastructure package as “ineffective” for investing in “AOC-inspired, left-wing, feel-good, Green New Deal pork” such as “bike share programs and bike lanes and electric scooters, “money for ferries and - not to be left out - electric ferries,” and “money to restore aquatic ecosystems and build special culverts that are safer for fish and shellfish.”
PA-SEN: John Fetterman just started running ads highlighting some of his priorities, including climate action: “I’m running as a get sh*t done Democrat, and if elected I promise to vote to get rid of the filibuster and fight to pass legislation that will establish at least a $15 minimum wage, expand voting rights, combat climate change, and so much more.”
WI-SEN: Mandela Barnes joined several other Democratic Senate candidates calling on abolishing the filibuster to fundraise: “The truth is, everything is riding on this seat – the Senate Democratic majority, abolishing the filibuster, and every issue you care about from voting rights to climate change to health care.”