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Andrew Arenge @mrarenge.bsky.social · 19d

Slightly different way of visualizing the same data - taking the daily estimates of spending on Meta ads linking to ActBlue & dividing by spending on all Meta political ads

As a percent of overall spending, spending on ActBlue ads in 2025 is essentially on par with 2024 spending

Andrew Arenge @mrarenge.bsky.social · 20d

Top spenders on ActBlue linking Meta ads in '25

DNC/DCCC - $7M
Jon Ossoff - $4.5M
Gavin Newsom - $3.5M
AOC - $3.1M
Progressive Turnout Project - $2.3M
Gay Valimont - $1.9M
Women's March - $1.8M
Chris Murphy - $1.6M
MoveOn - $1.5M
Jasmine Crockett - $1.2M
James Talarico - $1.2M
Bernie Sanders -$1.1M

Andrew Arenge @mrarenge.bsky.social · 20d

Top spenders on WinRed linking Meta ads in 2025

Winsome Earle-Sears - $288K
America First Legal - $84K
Vivek Ramaswamy - $61K
Jason Miyares - $53K
Rand Paul - $29K
Tom Kean - $20K
Hardworking Americans - $16K
Nate Morris - $13K
Brian Kemp - $12K

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Andrew Arenge @mrarenge.bsky.social · 20d

Political advertisers spent $50.6M on Facebook + Instagram ads linking out to ActBlue this year (only 745K WinRed ads)

September was second highest month for ActBlue

Jan - $1.9M
Feb - $5.8M
Mar - $10.2M
Apr - $3.9M
May - $3.3M
Jun - $4.8M
Jul - $3.9M
Aug - $7M
Sep - $9.7M

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Andrew Arenge @mrarenge.bsky.social · 20d

Outside of the significant surges we've seen during presidential election years, the surge in spending we saw last month on Meta political ads linking out to ActBlue's platform was higher than any other moment in the data (which stretches back 7 years)

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Andrew Arenge @mrarenge.bsky.social · 20d

As we finished out Q3 & hit fundraising deadline, saw a huge uptick in the amount of money spent on Facebook/Instagram digital ads linking out to ActBlue

Surpassed over $500K spent on these ads yesterday

Saw huge difference between ads linking to ActBlue vs WinRed

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Andrew Arenge @mrarenge.bsky.social · 23d

Pete Buttigieg saw quite an uptick in spending on fundraising ads running on Facebook + Instagram recently

He was the 9th largest political advertiser running Meta ads last Thurs (the most recent daily spending data available)

Has spent $288K on these digital ads so far this year

Andrew Arenge @mrarenge.bsky.social · 29d

Totally different story in NJ

If we limit analysis to just candidates, Ciattarelli far outspent Sherill on Google (though Sherill was boosted by Greater Garden State - which is run by the Democratic Gov Assoc)

Neither candidate was in top Meta advertisers in NJ this past month

Andrew Arenge @mrarenge.bsky.social · 29d

Seeing a pretty massive mismatch in spending on Google + Facebook/Instagram digital political ads in the Virginia Governor race right now.

The data from both platforms indicates that Spanberger outspent Earle-Sears by ~4x over the past 30 days.

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Andrew Arenge @mrarenge.bsky.social · Sep 21

There were ~8K pages that used the word bipartisan in their Facebook + Instagram political ads over the past 7 years.

Here's a breakdown of the political advertisers who spent the most money on ads including the word.

Andrew Arenge @mrarenge.bsky.social · Sep 21

Here's a look at the daily spending on Facebook + Instagram ads including the word "bipartisan".

That huge uptick in spending on Sept 22, 2020 is from ads that Meta ran on their own platforms promoting National Voter Registration Day (like this one)

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Andrew Arenge @mrarenge.bsky.social · Sep 21

Over the past 7 years, 0.46% of all spending on Facebook + Instagram political ads nationwide included the word "bipartisan"

Works out to ~$25M in total ad spending

Seems notable that the average annual rate for this year is at a low point in the data

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Andrew Arenge @mrarenge.bsky.social · Sep 20

The group Progressive Turnout Project spent $230K on Facebook + Instagram ads on Thurs (quite an uptick for the group)

Most of the spending was on ads related to Jimmy Kimmel being taken off the air

The ads link to this listbuilding page on their site (not an ActBlue page, like the ads indicate)

Andrew Arenge @mrarenge.bsky.social · Sep 18

If you have that data - absolutely!

Unfortunately don't have time to categorize all of these advertisers right now (still working on archiving all of those digital political ads that are being deleted each day....what a project it's been, but I'm making progress)

Andrew Arenge @mrarenge.bsky.social · Sep 18

There were ~19K pages that used the word at some point in their Facebook + Instagram political ads over the past 7 years.

Everytown for Gun Safety spent the most, followed by Sandy Hook Promise and Mike Bloomberg

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Andrew Arenge @mrarenge.bsky.social · Sep 18

Same data presented as percent of spending across all Meta political ads (~1.8% of Meta spending included word, pct of spending has declined over time)

For a bit in 2020, 1 out of every 10 dollars spent on Meta ads included the word (largely thanks to spending by Mike Bloomberg)

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Andrew Arenge @mrarenge.bsky.social · Sep 18

The Facebook + Instagram digital political ad data indicates that just over $97M has been spent over the past 7 years on digital ads mentioning the word "gun"

Think...
- gun safety
- gun lobby
- gun rights
- gun control
- gun owner

Here's the graph outlining daily spending

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Andrew Arenge @mrarenge.bsky.social · Sep 16

You can dig into all of the spending trends across all 435 individual congressional districts here: aarenge.shinyapps.io/2026_meta_CD_targeting/

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Andrew Arenge @mrarenge.bsky.social · Sep 16

Spending across the 35 GOP held districts the DCCC is hoping to flip in 2026 has also seen a little drop off in spending here in September - but digital advertisers are just spending more

Went from ~$90K a day spent across the districts at end of August to ~$70K a day now

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Andrew Arenge @mrarenge.bsky.social · Sep 16

This is largely do to a pull back in advertising by Effective Governing Coalition and the American Action Network.

Both groups were running targeted ads on Google's platforms in August but have ended those specific digital ad buys.

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Andrew Arenge @mrarenge.bsky.social · Sep 16

Have seen a big drop off in spending on digital ads running in NRCC targeted congressional districts (Dem held CDs they're hoping to flip in 2026)

Toward end of Aug, advertisers collectively spent ~$40K per day across the 26 targeted districts.

Now they're spending ~$2K a day

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Andrew Arenge @mrarenge.bsky.social · Sep 8

With today's update, I'm now estimating that political advertisers have spent over $25M on Facebook, Instagram + Google digital ads targeted at specific CDs since the beginning of the year.

Only 5 advertisers have spent over $1M so far

aarenge.shinyapps.io/2026_meta_CD...

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Andrew Arenge @mrarenge.bsky.social · Sep 7

One interesting, random find in the data:

The page Patriotic Millionaires is running digital ads on Facebook + Instagram specifically in NC-07 (GOP Rep David Rouzer won it by 17 points in 2024). Very few pages running ads in the district right now.

Here's one of their ads.

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Andrew Arenge @mrarenge.bsky.social · Sep 7

Updated the interactive dashboard tracking geotargeted political ad spending on digital ads running in congressional districts.

Closing in on ~$25M in total spending this year

Can see who's targeting your CD here: aarenge.shinyapps.io/2026_meta_CD...

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Andrew Arenge @mrarenge.bsky.social · Sep 7