Yang leads Democratic presidential candidates in Facebook spending for past week
WASHINGTON — Entrepreneur Andrew Yang led the field of 2020 Democratic presidential candidates in money spent on Facebook advertisements for the second week in a row.
Yang spent $154,840 on ads from April 7 to April 13, trailing only President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, which spent $161,285.
Yang spent $157,230 the previous week, the most of any presidential candidate of either party, according to Facebook’s publicly available political ad archive.
Many of Yang’s recent ads were used to promote events he was holding in cities such as Boston and Atlanta last week. The ads often mentioned Venture for America, the nonprofit Yang started.
Yang’s ads also highlighted his support for a universal basic income as a response to the threat of artificial intelligence.
Following Yang in last week’s spending was Julián Castro, former San Antonio mayor and housing secretary under President Obama, who spent $137,162. Castro's ads focused primarily on fundraising to secure a spot in the Democratic debates, saying “my spot on that stage isn’t guaranteed unless I reach 65,000 donors.”
One way candidates can qualify for the debate is if they raise money from 65,000 unique donors as well as from 200 unique donors in at least 20 states.
Rounding out the top five Democratic spenders were Sen. Elizabeth Warren ($67,275), Marianne Williamson ($64,634), and Sen. Amy Klobuchar ($48,379).
President Trump has dominated Facebook spending this year, buying ads through both his official campaign committee, Donald J. Trump for President Inc., and the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, a joint effort of the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee.
Many of Trump’s ads last week focused on themes such as the Mueller Report, the southern border wall, and the news media. There were often requests for donations with phrases such as “DONATE NOW to show you want to FINISH THE WALL!”
Facebook started the political ad archive in May 2018 to increase transparency and “to help prevent abuse, especially during elections.”
All election-related and issues ads must now be labeled with who paid for the ad. Facebook users can see how much a campaign spent on an ad and how many people saw it.