Inside the $4 million digital fight to pass or kill the Build Back Better Act before Christmas
The bill’s proponents spent over $3 million in the past month on Facebook and Google ads promoting the bill
Welcome to Climate Monitor’s final issue of 2021! To close out yet another indescribable year, we looked at the social media and digital ad trends driving the fight to pass the Build Back Better Act after it passed out of the House…at least, until a certain senator from West Virginia threw a wrench in things just before the holidays. Even still, we hope today’s newsletter helps you better understand the role that the internet has played in the fight over the past month, and moreover, we hope you have a safe, relaxing holiday season.
What we found:
Groups supporting the Build Back Better Act spent more than twice as much on Facebook and Google ads in the past month than groups opposing the bill.
Environmental and climate groups’ investments made up a significant chunk of Facebook ad spending supporting BBB.
While pro-BBB groups promote the various positive benefits the bill would have - climate action, lower drug costs, paid leave, etc. - right-wing groups are laser focused on scaring Americans into believing the bill will make costs rise further and take over their lives.
When it comes to organic content on Facebook, right-wing pages latched onto Joe Manchin’s dramatic rejection of BBB last week and generated a huge spike in mostly negative discussion about the bill on the social media platform.
Pro-Build Back Better groups severely outspent opposition on Facebook, Google ads over the past month
While Democrats and other advocates for the Build Back Better Act face significant challenges in pushing for the bill on organic social media, they seem to have made significant investments on political digital ads over the past month to make up for it. We identified over six dozen pro-BBB groups that have been advertising on Facebook and Google since the House passed the bill on Nov. 19, and they have sharply outspent the twenty or so anti-BBB groups we identified. Here’s how that spending breaks down:
Lighter shades represent political ad spending on Google platforms.
Among BBB proponents that have run Facebook ads in the past month, it appears that climate and environmental groups are leading the charge. The League of Conservation Voters, the Climate Reality Action Fund, the NRDC Action Fund, the Sierra Club, EDF Action, and Climate Power and other environmental groups accounted for nearly 39 percent of all Facebook ad spending by pro-BBB groups in the past month. Many of these groups have used their ads to thank or criticize lawmakers for their support or opposition to the bill, a few, namely EDF Action and Climate Power, have been running nationwide campaigns touting the benefits of BBB.
Other groups, including Building Back Together, SEIU, and AARP, are running several campaigns supporting the Democrats’ agenda, either calling for BBB’s passage or celebrating the benefits of the recently passed Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Some of the key elements these groups repeatedly point to in their ads include expanding broadband access, prescription drug affordability, extending the Child Tax Credit, and guaranteed paid medical and family leave.
The primary opponents to BBB spending big on Facebook ads include the usual suspects, like Americans for Prosperity, Heritage Action for America, One Nation, and the America First Policy Institute. All of their ads opposing BBB are predictably rooted in fear: fear of inflation, fear of “government takeover,” fear of tax hikes, the same criticisms they’ve been leveling against Democrats for years. We did notice that all of their ads seem to be focused on targeting Democrats in tough races in 2022, especially Sens. Mark Kelly, Maggie Hassan, Catherine Cortez Masto, and Raphael Warnock.
Overall, here were the top 10 spenders on Facebook ads promoting or opposing the Build Back Better Act, and how much that group spent in the past month (note that these spending totals also include ads not related to the bill):
Spending by these groups on Google’s platforms was typically smaller than their Facebook investments, but Build Back Better advocates outspent the opposition here too, as far as we can tell. Overall, though, the investments by the top 10 spenders below account for almost 97 percent of all Google ad spending by BBB advocates and opponents:
The top spender, Priorities USA, is taking a roundabout approach promoting BBB in an apparent effort to promote the Biden administration overall. They’ve been running highly geotargeted Google Search ads in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin touting the benefits of the American Rescue Plan and the potential benefits of BBB. All of these ads lead to this microsite that has a ton of details and stats for each state.
Most other groups, however, have been running YouTube ads to promote or undermine the Build Back Better Act. Climate Power has been running this YouTube ad in the DC media market arguing that BBB will lower various costs for working families, the Economic Security Project has been running testimonials lauding the Child Tax Credit, and LCV ran a handful of YouTube ads touting lower energy costs in Arizona, Nevada, and New Hampshire.
Meanwhile, One Nation and Americans for Prosperity have been running YouTube ads stoking fears about inflation, rising costs and national debt, and a scary government takeover, just like their Facebook ads. Heritage Action for America has been using similar rhetoric in their Google ads, but they have instead opted to run banner ads all over the internet pressuring Sens. Warnock, Kelly, Hassan, Jon Tester, and Joe Manchin.
Manchin’s about-face on Build Back Better overshadowed weeks of messaging
For our final social media readout of 2021, we looked at the last big legislative fight of the year: getting Build Back Better passed. We found that prior to last weekend, the most-engaged content mentioning the bill either came from President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, the Daily Wire, or Breitbart, but Sen. Joe Manchin’s about-face really threw a wrench in things, to say the least.
Manchin’s dramatic announcement on Fox News - of all places - was the biggest driver of social media engagement among posts about the bill. Eight of the top 10 posts about Build Back Better in the past month came from right-wing pages, and seven of those were celebrating Manchin’s recently declared opposition. Moreover, of the top 1,000 posts mentioning Build Back Better, 497 came from right-wing pages, and their posts generated 2,991,951 interactions, while just 323 posts from left-wing pages generated 2,231,092 interactions in the past month.
To give you an idea of just how much social media engagement Manchin’s announcement drove around Build Back Better-related content compared to the rest of the month, here’s how many social media interactions relevant articles got over the course of the month - the recent spike is hard to miss!
Moreover, if Manchin wants to feel like conservatives in his state are happy with him for obstructing Democrats, then he has almost certainly accomplished that goal with this recent move. Almost all of the top comments on all of the top right-wing posts are readers celebrating the supposed death of the Build Back Better Act, looking something like this (these in particular came from this Breitbart post):
From what we could gather, most of the top Instagram posts about Build Back Better in the past month were not about Manchin, and were instead posts from Biden, Harris, and the White House touting the importance of their bill. FWIW, the top two Instagram posts from Biden about BBB were about capping the cost of insulin and universal pre-K. Additionally, the only right-wing post to make the top 10 below came from Breitbart, whose post celebrated Manchin owning the libs:
“🤣🤣🤣LINK IN BIO 🤣🤣🤣🔴 And now it's time to enjoy the delicious meltdowns and freakouts of rich Elites throwing hilarious tantrums that Democrat Senator Joe Manchin III @joemanchin stood firmly on principle to defeat Biden's insane $4.91 trillion "Build Back Better" radical scheme.”
That’s it for Climate Monitor this week. As always, head to climatemonitor.substack.com to see these updates in real time as we publish them throughout the week!
And if you have any comments or questions, feel free to drop us a line by shooting an email to nick@fwiwmedia.com.