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Ted Cruz bets big on Facebook
The Texas Republican has spent more than all but one
other senator on Facebook ads in recent months, a move that could help him if
he runs for president again.
Sen. Ted Cruz's campaign and allied groups raised $5.3
million in the first quarter of this year.
By
THEODORIC MEYER
05/11/2021
04:30 AM EDT
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/11/ted-cruz-facebook-486843
Sen. Ted
Cruz isn't up for reelection until 2024. But the Texas Republican has spent
more on Facebook advertising over the past two months than all but one senator,
an investment strategy that other lawmakers have used in recent cycles to help
set the stage for presidential runs.
Cruz has
plowed more than $240,000 into Facebook advertising since the platform started
accepting political ads again two months ago. The only sitting senator who has
spent more is Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), who forked over $335,000 for ads on
the social media giant, according to a POLITICO analysis of Facebook
advertising disclosures.
Republicans
say the approach will help Cruz raise dollars online and cultivate and collect
email addresses of small dollar donors. And while the investment could pay off
in what’s likely to be an expensive Senate reelection bid — Cruz’s 2018 race
against Beto O’Rourke was the second most expensive of the cycle, according to
the Center for Responsive Politics — it also could serve the Texas Republican
well if he decides to run for president again, which Cruz has said he hoped to
do.
Politicians
with an eye on the White House have built digital-heavy campaign fundraising
apparatuses in the past. Vice President Kamala Harris spent heavily on online
ads in early 2017 right after she was elected to the Senate. Back then, her
team told HuffPost that she was taking advantage of small donors' enthusiasm
for contributing to Democrats after Trump's election; and, indeed, the roughly
$300,000 she spent on digital ads resulted in nearly $750,000 in small dollar
donations. The email list she built through those ad campaigns served her well
after she launched her presidential campaign two years later, when she raised
millions right out of the gate.
Cruz’s
outsize spending has, like Harris’, also led to a small-dollar surge. His
campaign and allied groups raised $5.3 million in the first quarter of this
year — 98 percent of which came in increments of $100 or less, according to
Cruz’s team.
While Cruz
has been focused on building up his small-dollar fundraising for years, the
return on investment from his digital ads has increased in recent months, as
Republicans eager to push back against President Joe Biden’s agenda have
stepped up their giving, a Cruz adviser said.
“When tens
of thousands of grassroots supporters are responding across the country to your
message, you continue to increase spending to reach even more potential
supporters,” the adviser wrote in an email to POLITICO.
Other
potential Republican presidential candidates have spent a fraction of what Cruz
has on Facebook in recent months. Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) spent about $72,000,
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) spent about $44,000 and former Vice President Mike
Pence’s Great America Committee PAC spent about $42,000. (Scott is up for
reelection next year, while Hawley is not.)
Eric
Wilson, a Republican digital strategist who's worked with Republican Senate
candidates, said the Cruz campaign’s spending didn't strike him as preparation
for another presidential run but as practical politics.
"This
is what you need to run for reelection as a senator," he said.
Wilson
praised Cruz for his willingness to invest in building up a small-donor base
years before he's up for reelection rather than hoarding it to build up cash on
hand — which he referred to as "the war chest myth."
"I
wish more senators and other elected officials would follow suit," he
said. "Because building a digital infrastructure for campaigning is a
year-round endeavor."
Cruz’s
burst of ad spending comes as his ties with corporate America have frayed.
Corporate PACs have pulled back their support for the Texas senator after he
voted not to certify Biden's victory in January. Just one corporate PAC gave to
Cruz's campaign in the first quarter of this year, according to a campaign
finance disclosure. But a spokesperson for the PAC, the Lyondell Chemical
Company PAC, said the donation was actually made back in September.
Even if
corporate PACs were to give, Cruz has said he won’t accept their donations. He
has blasted "woke" corporations and chief executives that have criticized
Republicans in Georgia and other states for passing new voting laws. And he has
vowed to stop taking their money.
"In my
nine years in the Senate, I've received $2.6 million in contributions from
corporate political-action committees," he wrote in an op-ed last month in
The Wall Street Journal. "Starting today, I no longer accept money from
any corporate PAC. I urge my GOP colleagues at all levels to do the same."
Cruz has
echoed that message in his recent Facebook ads.
"I'm
done with these woke corporations," reads a Cruz ad that started running
last week. "I'm never taking their money again. I won't owe them a single
thing and I'm going to spend every day stopping their radical agenda. But if
I'm going to win, if I'm going to beat them, then I need patriots like you to
step up and make a donation today!"
The
strategy is reminiscent of many Democrats' approach to fundraising during the
Trump administration, as more and more Democratic candidates swore off
corporate PAC contributions and relied on small-dollar donors to make up the
difference.
The only
lawmakers whose campaigns have spent more on Facebook ads than Cruz and Warnock
between Feb. 4 and May 4 are Reps. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) and Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). While the data covers three months, Facebook didn’t
start accepting political ads again until March 4, when it ended a ban on such
ads it had imposed shortly before the November election in an effort to limit
the spread of disinformation.
Two House
candidates running against polarizing Republicans — Marcus Flowers, who’s running
against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), and Kerry Donovan, who’s
challenging Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) — and Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John
Fetterman, who’s running for an open Senate seat, also outspent Cruz.
Porter and
Ocasio-Cortez both reject corporate PAC donations. While Ocasio-Cortez's
district is deep blue, Porter represents a trending-blue swing district and
could face a competitive race next year, depending on how her district's lines
are redrawn.
"Practically
all of our campaign's fundraising comes from engaging grassroots supporters
through emails, reaching new supporters through Facebook ads, and the like —
rather than traditional tactics like call time/fundraising events," an
Ocasio-Cortez spokesperson wrote in an email to POLITICO. "So
that's why our spending likely looks high relatively."
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