Ciara Torres-Spelliscy for the Brennan Center. … Continue reading
Category Archives: campaigns
WaPo: In the wake of the election, President Trump’s supporters have been peppered with texts and emails asking for donations to support legal battles contesting his loss to President-elect Joe Biden.“We can’t allow the Left-wing MOB to undermine our Election,” … Continue reading
Star Tribune: The Minneapolis police union put out a call this week for retired officers to help serve as “eyes and ears” at polling sites in “problem” areas across the city on Election Day, at the request of an attorney … Continue reading
Wichita Eagle: A secret recording released Friday shows that three Republican officials sought to frame the county’s Republican chairman for a falsified ad they put together smearing then-mayoral candidate Brandon Whipple. One compared their mission to that of the man … Continue reading
WSJ: Facebook is demanding that a New York University research project cease collecting data about its political-ad targeting practices, setting up a fight with academics seeking to study the platform without the company’s permission.The dispute involves the NYU Ad Observatory, … Continue reading
NYT: President Trump called Facebook and Twitter “terrible” and “a monster” and said he would go after them. Senators Ted Cruz and Marsha Blackburn said they would subpoena the chief executives of the companies for their actions. And on Fox … Continue reading
Politico: Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam Adelson gave $75 million to a super PAC that flooded battleground states with anti-Joe Biden ads in September, a huge investment from the GOP megadonors as President Donald Trump slipped in … Continue reading
Politico: Democratic candidates and left-leaning groups raised $1.5 billion through ActBlue over the last three months — a record-smashing total that reveals the overwhelming financial power small-dollar donors have unleashed up and down the ballot ahead of the 2020 election.From … Continue reading
Politico: Joe Biden announced Wednesday evening that his campaign and affiliated committees raised $383 million in September, breaking a record he had just set the prior month as his campaign continues to ride a surge of online donations.Biden, the Democratic National Committee … Continue reading
Politico: The online fundraising edge that Democrats have enjoyed for years has mushroomed into an overpowering force, with small-dollar donors smashing “donate” buttons over the last three months to process their disgust for President Donald Trump, fury with Senate Majority … Continue reading
WaPo: Democrat Jaime Harrison raised a record-breaking $57 million in the past three months in his bid to unseat Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), shattering the mark for a Senate candidate.The single-quarter haul Harrison raised from July through September smashes … Continue reading
NYT: Donald J. Trump needed money.His “self-funded” presidential campaign was short on funds, and he was struggling to win over leery Republican donors. His golf courses and the hotel he would soon open in the Old Post Office in Washington … Continue reading
I’m going to have a lot more to say about this after the election: On Thursday, in a conference call with a group of lobbyists, Mr. McConnell vented that the party’s Senate candidates are being financially overwhelmed because of small-dollar … Continue reading
Bloomberg Government: The 2020 election has generated a record $13.3 billion in federal campaign contributions, funding a barrage of political advertising that strategists say risks blurring candidate messaging.The unprecedented outpouring of campaign cash raised through Sept. 28 is more than … Continue reading
Daily Beast: Over three million Black voters in key states were identified by President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign as people they had to persuade to stay at home on Election Day to help him reach the White House.The revelation comes from an … Continue reading
CNN: Facebook (FB) has allowed political advertisers to target hundreds of misleading ads about Joe Biden and the US Postal Service to swing-state voters ranging from Florida to Wisconsin in recent weeks, in an apparent failure to enforce its own platform rules … Continue reading
NYT: Facebook has detected limited Chinese operations intended to both help and hurt President Trump’s re-election chances, the company announced on Tuesday, the first public disclosure of Chinese efforts to influence the presidential election in November.The Chinese activity, while modest … Continue reading
Video Insider: Political ads have followed consumers to popular streaming services. But unlike traditional TV broadcasters, streamers are not required to disclose how ads are targeted or who is viewing them. And while social media platforms have begun to come under … Continue reading
Axios reports. … Continue reading
Shane Goldmacher for the NYT: Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s campaign said on Sunday that it entered September with $466 million in the bank together with the Democratic Party, providing Mr. Biden a vast financial advantage of about $141 million over President … Continue reading
Politico: Republican Party megadonors are racing to bail out President Donald Trump’s cash-strapped reelection campaign, with a newly formed super PAC pouring a further$25 million into battleground states.Preserve America is set to begin running a trio of TV commercials savaging … Continue reading
NYU: Transparency in political ads is vital to ensuring safe and fair elections, but transparency is difficult if advertisers are not required to disclose details about targeting and sources of funding. While TV broadcasters must disclose information about political ads … Continue reading
CNBC: Casino magnate and Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson is plotting a spending blitz to support President Donald Trump with just under 50 days to go until Election Day, CNBC has learned. Adelson, CEO of Las Vegas Sands, is looking to spend … Continue reading
Washington Post: One tweet claimed coronavirus numbers were intentionally inflated, adding, “It’s hard to know what to believe.” Another warned, “Don’t trust Dr. Fauci.”A Facebook comment argued that mail-in ballots “will lead to fraud for this election,” while an Instagram comment amplified the erroneous claim that … Continue reading
Tech Crunch: A privacy bug in Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s official campaign app allowed anyone to look up sensitive voter information on millions of Americans, a security researcher has found.The campaign app, Vote Joe, allows Biden supporters to encourage friends and family … Continue reading
Politico: George Soros directs a “deep state” global conspiracy network. A Joe Biden win would put America in control of “Jews and Blacks.” The Democratic nominee has a pedophilia problem.Wild disinformation like this is inundating Spanish-speaking residents of South Florida … Continue reading
So troubling: Facebook ignored or was slow to act on evidence that fake accounts on its platform have been undermining elections and political affairs around the world, according to an explosive memo sent by a recently fired Facebook employee and … Continue reading
A wow story in the New Yorker: On its face, Phunware seems like a strange choice to develop the campaign’s app. Before working for President Trump, Phunware’s software was being used in relatively few applications, the most popular being a … Continue reading
NYT: Michael R. Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor and presidential candidate, announced Sunday that he planned to spend $100 million in Florida in the coming weeks to support Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s presidential candidacy.The pledge came as new polls showed a particularly … Continue reading
Politico: Democrats are amassing an enormous lead in early voting, alarming Republicans who worry they’ll need to orchestrate a huge Election Day turnout during a deadly coronavirus outbreak to answer the surge.The Democratic dominance spreads across an array of battleground … Continue reading
WaPo: President Trump’s campaign, the Republican National Committee and two affiliated fundraising committees on Wednesday announced raising $210 million in August — a sizable sum that still lags behind Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s record-breaking haul last month.The RNC said $76 million … Continue reading
Politico: Most campaigns merely post their television spots on the site. Trump’s YouTube channel, however, is a voluminous and unique collection of news, campaign ads and original web shows. Negative ads like “Don’t let them ruin America” are paired with … Continue reading
Bloomberg: President Donald Trump has discussed spending as much as $100 million of his own money on his re-election campaign, if necessary, to beat Democratic nominee Joe Biden, according to people familiar with the matter.The billionaire president has talked about … Continue reading
NYT: Five months later, Mr. Trump’s financial supremacy has evaporated. Of the $1.1 billon his campaign and the party raised from the beginning of 2019 through July, more than $800 million has already been spent. Now some people inside the … Continue reading
WaPo: For President Trump and his allies, it was a week spent spreading doctored and misleading videos.On Aug. 30, the president retweeted footage of a Black man violently pushing a White woman on a subway platform under the caption, “Black Lives Matter/Antifa” — … Continue reading
CNN: An Ohio-based political advocacy group that shares a Republican-allied law firm with Kanye West’s political campaign is sending unsolicited mail-in ballot applications containing misinformation on Democratic candidates to voters in Pennsylvania and Minnesota — both key battleground states for the 2020 election.Common … Continue reading
CNN: In an attempt to combat efforts to undermine the US presidential election in November, Facebook on Thursday took several steps it says will address concerns about election interference on its platform.But Facebook will continue to allow politicians to run lies in ads through … Continue reading
ABC News: In early July the Department of Homeland Security withheld publication of an intelligence bulletin warning law enforcement agencies of a Russian scheme to promote “allegations about the poor mental health” of former Vice President Joe Biden, according to internal emails … Continue reading
Politico: Joe Biden and the Democratic National Committee reported raising a record $365 million in August, surprising even seasoned party fundraisers and putting to rest fears that President Trump would drown him in campaign spending.The staggering cash coincides with Biden … Continue reading
New report from CAP. … Continue reading
New Brennan Center report. … Continue reading
You can find the complaint at this link. As Ben Jacobs noted the other day, this may be the first time a candidate for President has been sued by one of the candidate’s purported presidential electors. … Continue reading
WaPo: Attorney General William P. Barr imposed new rules Tuesday tightening the use of government surveillance on political candidates or their staffers — a move likely to cheer conservatives who have long criticized how the FBI investigated the Trump campaign … Continue reading
WaPo: Google has declined to remove ads from a shadowy group echoing President Trump’s misleading claim that there is a meaningful difference between voting by mail and absentee voting.Google took five days to reach its decision to leave the ads in … Continue reading
Kevin Roose for the NYT: Listen, liberals. If you don’t think Donald Trump can get re-elected in November, you need to spend more time on Facebook.Since the 2016 election, I’ve been obsessively tracking how partisan political content is performing on … Continue reading
NBC News: Twitter has taken action to stop a spam operation that pushed messages from fake accounts about Black people abandoning the Democratic Party.The company removed two fake accounts and deleted the account of a San Diego man who spammed … Continue reading
Detroit News: Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is warning Detroit voters of a “racially charged” and false robocall that appears to be discouraging mail-in voting ahead of the November election. The recording tells voters that their personal information will be part … Continue reading
Can’t wait to dig into this volume edited by Nate Persily and Joshua Tucker, with free access from Cambridge. Thanks Cambridge! … Continue reading
WaPo: A prominent Washington-based conservative advocacy organization is promoting a deceptive digital ad campaign that is stoking fears about mail-in voting and targeting battleground states with high concentrations of minority voters.FreedomWorks, the tax-exempt nonprofit that helped launchtea-partyprotests a decade ago … Continue reading
NYT: More than 200 pages into a sprawling, 1,000-page report on Russian election interference, the Senate Intelligence Committee made a startling conclusion endorsed by both Republicans and Democrats: Donald J. Trump knew of and discussed stolen Democratic emails at critical points late … Continue reading