Season 6, Episode 7 of the ELB Podcast:
How did campaigning and false information in campaigns change in the 2024 elections?
What role did platform content moderation play in 2024?
Is generative AI going to change campaigns in 2028 and beyond?
On Season 6, Episode 7 of the ELB podcast, a roundtable with Alice Marwick, Kate Starbird, and Joshua Tucker.
You can subscribe on Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.
As Elon Musk’s government-shrinking operation slashed its way through federal agencies across Washington this month, one of his top lieutenants turned his attention to a smaller political arena, more than 2,000 miles away.
Chris Young, the top political strategist to Elon Musk who is also a senior adviser at Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, joined a video call last week with a Nevada political consultant to discuss how Musk’s America PAC could help turn Nevada’s seven-seat Clark County Commission Republican and shape the political landscape in Nevada, people familiar with the call said.
After spending hundreds of millions of dollars backing Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, America PAC is now exploring local races. Republican candidates across the country are wooing the group for support for the 2026 midterm elections and other political efforts. In Georgia, gubernatorial candidates have asked the group to play a role in that race, according to people familiar with the outreach. In other 2026 battleground states, including Arizona, Senate candidates have also reached out to the group.
Déjà vu all over again, from Axios.
Facebook and Instagram-owner Meta Platforms said on Tuesday its independent fact-checking program in Australia would help detect and remove false content and deepfakes, as it aims to curb misinformation ahead of a national election due by May.
In a blog post, the social media company said any content that could lead to imminent violence and physical harm, and interfere with voting would be removed, while the distribution of misleading content through its platforms would be curtailed.
“When content is debunked by fact-checkers, we attach warning labels to the content and reduce its distribution in Feed and Explore so it is less likely to be seen,” said Cheryl Seeto, Meta’s Head of Policy in Australia.
News agencies Agence France-Presse and the Australian Associated Press will review the content for Meta, Seeto said.
Meta scrapped its U.S. fact-checking programs in January and reduced curbs on discussions around contentious topics such as immigration and gender identity, bowing to pressure from conservatives to implement the biggest overhaul of its approach to managing political content on its services.
Wisconsin Public Radio on a cautionary tale of relying too heavily on out-of-state help:
Last week, some Wisconsin voters began receiving postcards reminding them to vote in an upcoming election.
The notes were backing Susan Crawford, the liberal candidate in the high-stakes Wisconsin Supreme Court race. They briefly described her background and encouraged voters to head to the polls.
The problem? The postcards gave the wrong date. The actual election takes place on Tuesday, April 1. The postcards said it was 10 days later — on a Friday.
The wrong information most likely stemmed from a misunderstanding, when out-of-state volunteers, following a script from an advocacy group, misread an exclamation point as the number one. That would change “April 1!” to “April 11.”
Despite Elon Musk’s multi-million dollar spending spree, progressives retain an advantage on the airwaves in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race—and now they’re making an issue of Musk’s involvement, too. At the same time, a rare poll shows liberal Judge Susan Crawford leading her opponent, former Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel, ahead of their April 1 showdown.
On the advertising front, new data from AdImpact shows that Crawford and her allies have spent $17 million to date versus $12 million for Schimel’s side. Conservatives hold a small edge in future reservations, $6.3 million to $5.8 million, but that gap is a fraction of the $7 million advantage Schimel and his supporters enjoyed just two weeks ago…
NYT:
Problems with a huge database of voter information that effectively functions as the central nervous system of the Democratic Party grew so worrisome last summer that top Democrats staged an extraordinary intervention to keep it running through the November election, according to multiple people involved.
Had it collapsed, the party’s entire get-out-the-vote operation could have been temporarily crippled, forcing canvassers to work with pen and paper instead of smartphones, and leaving campaigns effectively blind — unaware of which doors to knock on and which phones to call.
To avoid such a catastrophe, a handful of engineers from the Democratic National Committee and the Kamala Harris campaign scrubbed in, spending months to ensure the database stayed afloat, the people said.
The private company that runs the database warned some Democratic groups that it could not handle the large volume of data being uploaded and downloaded. An outside entity raced to install a workaround, while a wealthy Democratic financier, Allen Blue, was asked to fund an emergency engineering operation to keep data flowing.
“This can’t happen again,” said Mr. Blue, a founder of LinkedIn, who warned that an overhaul of the party’s technological infrastructure needed to be part of any broader Democratic rebuilding efforts. “Technology and data are the foundations for how modern campaigns are run.”
The episode, which has not been previously reported, has deepened concerns at the party’s highest levels about its singular dependency on a for-profit company whose majority owner, a private equity firm, has imposed layoffs in recent years to slash costs.
The company insists the database worked fine.
This week, as a group of Democratic tech operatives gathered in Puerto Rico to discuss the future of data and technology for the party, the fate of the database system, called NGP VAN, was on the agenda….
The demoralization and fear gripping blue America in the early weeks of President Trump’s administration have left liberal groups and their allies struggling for cash, hurting their ability to effectively combat the right-wing transformation of the federal government.
The small-dollar online spigot that powered opposition to the first Trump administration has slowed to a trickle as shaken liberal voters withhold their donations.
Charitable foundations that have long supported causes like voting rights, L.G.B.T.Q. equality and immigrants’ rights are pulling back, devoting time to prepare for expected investigations from the Republican-led Congress.
And some of the country’s biggest liberal donors have paused giving, frustrated with what they see as Democrats’ lack of vision and worried about retaliation from a vengeful president. Some Democrats say a few of their reliable donors are now openly supporting Mr. Trump, or at least looking to curry favor with him.
Fund-raising slowdowns are common after a presidential defeat and before marquee midterm races fully begin. But interviews with more than 50 donors, strategists and leaders of activist organizations show that many Democrats believe this year is different.
While Mr. Trump has not taken action against any liberal groups or lawmakers, Democrats worry his frequent threats of retribution during the campaign have led to a chilling effect on the charitable foundations and nonprofit advocacy groups that have long been pillars of the country’s civil society.
Jeff Skoll, a Silicon Valley billionaire and a longtime friend of Elon Musk’s, said there was “an awful lot of pressure” to side with Mr. Trump.
This month, Mr. Skoll, who has donated tens of millions to Democratic candidates and causes in recent years but said he did not vote in the 2024 presidential election, posted a photo on social media of himself standing with Mr. Trump backstage at the inauguration. On Friday, he had breakfast in Palm Beach, Fla., with Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, where they discussed the prospect of Mr. Schumer’s using Mr. Skoll to back-channel ideas to the president, Mr. Skoll said.
Mr. Schumer recalls the conversation differently, according to an aide, Allison Biasotti.
In an interview, Mr. Skoll acknowledged his unique position, saying he had heard from many others who were frightened to fund opposition to the administration.
“There are people who were absolutely against Trump, never Trumpers, who fear that they’ll be retaliated against and they’ll have to leave the country,” Mr. Skoll said. “Folks who wish to oppose him — it may take some time before they gather up the courage.”
The result is a political environment that is strikingly different from 2017, when money poured into Democratic causes, fortifying existing organizations and seeding a flowering of new groups to fight different parts of Mr. Trump’s agenda.
Now, some of those same organizations are struggling to survive, in part because few new major liberal donors have emerged since 2017. Groups that support L.G.B.T.Q. rights, promote gender equity and champion other progressive causes have cut staffing and announced that longtime leaders are leaving.
End Citizens United, a left-leaning group that aims to overhaul campaign finance laws, laid off its six senior staff members last month as part of a restructuring. Run for Something, which works to elect liberal down-ballot candidates, laid off 35 percent of its staff late last year. And GLSEN, a group dedicated to protecting L.G.B.T.Q. students, laid off 25 people last month….
Donald Trump’s first White House victory caught corporate America flat-footed. This time around, industries that his administration will soon oversee are showering his inaugural committee with record-breaking donations — and making sure both the president-elect and the public notice their largesse.
Not only are companies giving far larger amounts than they did to Trump’s first inauguration — when they didn’t have a firm grasp of how to handle misgivings about the mercurial politician — they’re doing so in a far more public fashion, announcing the donations months before they have to be reported to federal regulators….
It’s also a far cry from as recently as four years ago, when much of corporate America made a show of cutting ties with Trump over his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Since then, Trump’s subsequent felony convictions, promises to pardon members of the mob who stormed the Capitol or seek revenge on those who prosecuted him have done little to dull the corporate quest for Trump’s approval.
A party at the Beaux-Arts mansion of the venture capitalist Peter Thiel. A blowout organized by hosts of the popular tech podcast “All-In” at a brand-new members-only club. A viewing ceremony hosted by an ascendant, Silicon Valley-inflected network of wealthy donors.
Some of the most coveted parties during President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inaugural weekend will be hosted by the Silicon Valley donors who are flush with power at the dawn of his second administration. The tech industry that has embraced Mr. Trump over the last year or so is set to revel in its clout over days of festivities that will make the tech donors the stars of the show.
Inaugurations attract deep-pocketed corporations and donors seeking access to an incoming administration that will oversee their industries and interests. Mr. Trump’s official inaugural committee has shattered fund-raising records.
Companies have poured in $1 million or more, including Fortune 500 stalwarts like Ford and General Motors; tech giants like Amazon and Google; cryptocurrency upstarts like Ripple and Robinhood; and traditional G.O.P. megadonors, including the coal billionaires Joseph W. Craft III and Kelly Knight Craft, who gave $1 million, according to a person with knowledge of their donation. In exchange, donors have been given tickets to exclusive official events, including intimate dinners with Mr. Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance, and V.I.P. access to the swearing-in ceremony on Monday….
A nonprofit founded by Stacey Abrams, a Georgia Democrat, admitted on Wednesday that it had violated state law by concealing the fact that it had campaigned for her during her 2018 run for governor.
At the time of that campaign, the group was led by Raphael Warnock, who was later elected to the Senate as a Democrat from Georgia.
At a meeting of the state’s ethics commission, the nonprofit New Georgia Project conceded that it had paid for fliers and door-to-door canvassers telling voters to support Ms. Abrams and other Democrats.
Under federal law, tax-exempt charities like this one are forbidden to campaign for candidates, but this case was about a violation of state law.
The nonprofit conceded that, because of its campaign work for Ms. Abrams, it should have registered with the state as a political committee, but it did not. A related nonprofit, the New Georgia Project Action Fund, admitted the same.
As a result, the two nonprofits agreed to pay a $300,000 penalty. David Emadi, the executive director of the commission, said it was the largest fine in its 38-year history….
A spokesman for Ms. Abrams said in a statement that “Stacey hasn’t been involved in the organization’s work since she departed in 2017.” Mr. Warnock’s Senate staff issued a statement saying that, while he was the leader of the New Georgia Project in 2018, “compliance decisions were not a part of that work.”…
President-elect Trump is being inundated with so much money from corporations and wealthy donors that his team expects to raise about $500 million by summer — even though he can’t run again, sources in his operation tell Axios.
Why it matters: By stockpiling so much cash, Trump is signaling he doesn’t want to be seen as a lame duck in his second term, and is ready to help political allies, punish opponents and help Republicans keep full control of Congress in 2026.
Zoom in: Trump’s donors are giving to a variety of accounts.
President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inaugural committee is no longer selling tickets for major donors to attend his swearing-in and accompanying private events in Washington, according to five people briefed on the conversations.
The committee has raised over $170 million, according to the people, who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to share internal financial information. The haul is so big that some seven-figure donors have been placed on wait lists or have been told they probably will not receive V.I.P. tickets at all because the events are at capacity.
Mr. Trump often talks privately about who has supported him, and the frenzy to donate to his inauguration — even if it comes without the usual exclusive access — underscores the degree to which deep-pocketed donors and corporations are seeking to curry favor with him. Far more than in early 2017 at the start of his first term, corporate America has largely embraced Mr. Trump during his transition, partly out of a desire to get on his good side.
Prospective donors began to be told early this week that no more seats were available for certain events around Washington, according to the people briefed on the conversations. The personalized donation link that fund-raisers had circulated to their networks of major contributors no longer worked on Tuesday and Wednesday. The packages offered to corporate and individual donors had originally been marketed as available through Friday, but they ended early given the extraordinary demand….
Back in June, the Michigan Supreme Court narrowed the construction of its “voter intimidation statute.” Five justices agreed the case should be remanded, while two would have held the conduct outside the statute. I blogged about that case here, and as a brief reminder, here’s the content of the call:
Hi, this is Tamika Taylor from Project 1599, the civil rights organization founded by Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl. Mail-in voting sounds great, but did you know that if you vote by mail your personal information will be part of a public database that will be used by police departments to track down old warrants and be used by credit card companies to collect outstanding debts? The [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)] is even pushing to use records from mail-in voting to track people for mandatory vaccines. Don’t be finessed into giving your private information to the man. Stay safe and beware of vote by mail.
On remand, the Michigan Court of Appeals took the new narrower construction and concluded the case the defendant’s motion to quash should be denied (effectively allowing the prosecution to proceed), in a divided 2-1 decision issued last month. The decision in People v. Burkman and People v. Wohl is here. The dissenting opinion is here. The majority and dissenting opinions principally debated over whether the call was “related to voting requirements or procedures. From the majority:
We conclude there was probable cause to believe the robocall related to voting procedures. The Burkman II Court did not define “procedure.” When a term is not defined, it may be interpreted in accordance with its ordinary meaning, its context, or in consultation with a dictionary definition. See People v Lewis, 302 Mich App 338, 342; 839 NW2d 37 (2013). A “procedure” is “a particular way of accomplishing something or of acting,” or “a series of steps followed in a regular definite order.” Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, (11th ed). The robocall informed voters that, if they chose to vote by mail, their information would be made part of a public database. Further, the robocall stated the database “will be used by police departments to track down old warrants and be used by credit card companies to collect outstanding debts[.]” Lastly, the robocall warned about the CDC “pushing” to access and use those records “from mail-in voting to track people for mandatory vaccines.”
There can be no reasonable dispute that voting by mail is a voting procedure. That is, voting by mail is “a particular way of accomplishing” voting, which fits the definition of “procedure.” The robocall was related to the procedure, because it alleged that, if a voter used the voting procedure identified, certain negative events “will” occur. Those events involved a creation of a database that “will be” accessed by police and credit card companies to track down warrants and debts.
Indeed, instead of attempting to dispute this, defendants contend the robocall was not actually about the voting procedure, but about consequences. Defendants read “voting procedures” in a vacuum, ignoring that the robocall need only “relate to” the voting procedure. As is clear from the language used in it, the “consequences” cited by the robocall were attached solely to voting by mail, which is a voting procedure. Moreover, the definition of procedure as “a series of steps followed in a regular definite order” contemplates that procedure will incorporate one act after the other, in effect a consequence. Even so, defendants insist voting procedures as used in the limiting construction cannot include consequences of voting because, otherwise, political speech would be unconstitutionally impaired. The concern by defendants is overstated because, in making the argument, they conflate “voting procedures” with “voting.” Defendants provide an example of the consequence of voting for a certain candidate, not a consequence of using a particular voting procedure. The distinction is important because our Supreme Court was specific that the intentionally false speech must relate to a voting requirement or procedure. This means that intentionally false speech about voting for a particular candidate would not be covered, because it relates to the person’s vote, not how it is cast. In the present case, a jury could conclude that the robocall was designed to intimidate or prevent mail-in voting by offering that the process resulted in the creation of public database utilized to address a voter’s outstanding arrest warrants or debts.
And from the dissent:
The robocall appears to have been an effort to dissuade the recipient of the call, African-American citizens, from voting by absentee ballot. The robocall was crude, inappropriate, offensive, and worthy of contempt. Indeed, these actions should be condemned as contrary to that which we strive for as a nation and as individuals. . . .
. . . There is no dispute that defendants’ conduct did not relate to voting requirements. However, the majority concludes that defendants’ conduct related to voting procedures on the basis that the robocall relayed the alleged negative consequences of engaging in absentee voting. Because I conclude that the consequences of engaging in absentee voting are not related to the manner and means of voting, I would hold that the second part of the Supreme Court’s test has not been satisfied. . . .
For example, focusing on voting procedures, a robocall that falsely informs voters that the polls will remain open three hours late, see Burkman, _ Mich at _; slip op at 18 n 11, or falsely informs voters that they may cast a ballot via text message, see United States v Mackey, 652 F Supp 3d 309, 320 (ED NY, 2023), would violate MCL 168.932(a). Likewise, in the context of absentee voting, a robocall that informs voters that the deadline for turning in an absentee ballot was extended would also violate MCL 168.932(a). These examples each relate to the mechanics of voting.
Nothing in this malicious call related to the mechanics of absentee voting. There are no false statements about the steps by which voting by mail is accomplished Rather, the robocall addressed the alleged actions that entities unrelated to the regulation of elections—in this case, police departments, credit card companies, and the CDC—could take using absentee voter database. These entities’ possible use of the voter database says nothing about the mechanics by which voting by mail occurs. The robocall related to the alleged consequences of absentee voting.
It seems likely the case will go back to the Michigan Supreme Court, and I think that decision would be affirmed, so the lingering question is whether the United States Supreme Court might be asked to hear the First Amendment issue in the case sometime next year.