Been tracking Virginia voter turnout for NBC News all day
We've gotten data from 86 of the 133 jurisdictions
In communities that have traditionally supported Dems, turnout is ~87% of the number of people who voted in 2025, whereas GOP jurisdictions it's ~96%
www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru...
Tom Steyer has enough money - and a sophisticated enough campaign - that he's targeting different ads on Facebook + Instagram at people with different jobs.
The targeting indicates he's targeting people in the film industry, folks that work as home health aides, and teachers
Here's the final update regarding spending on Facebook + Instagram political ads ahead of tomorrow's Virginia redistricting election
Saw a significant uptick in spending by those advocating for people to vote no at the end (& found a bunch more advertisers advocating no votes).
Hadn't realized this until I just looked - digital advertisers are spending A TON of money on Google political ads
Can credit competitive primaries, PAC spending & shift in consumer behavior
Year to date spending in 2026 recently surpassed 2020 to become largest year of spending
Thank you so much for joining us!
Arenge welcomes students to the presentation portion of the 2026 Hackathon: our state in Data. Students took six hours to look at 20 years of PA traffic accident data
Scenes from a beautiful spring day in University City
Deer are crepuscular. Exhibit A: most car vs dread crashes happen at dawn and dusk
How one team separated crashes into categories: 1) under influence, 2) distractions, 3) aggressiveness, 4) Environment
So much fun to guest judge this @upenn.edu data contest led by @mrarenge.bsky.social.
Fascinating: there are more accidents on @philadelphiaeagles.bsky.social game days compared to similar days without.
But actually fewer drunk driving crashes! (Probably because more people are out & about)
Swalwell was spending ~$8.5K a day over the last few days on Facebook + Instagram ads - which isn't a ton, but isn't nothing
He spent ~$94K so far this year on Meta political ads
And was spending more this year, in his run for #CAGov, than back when he ran for President in 2020
They can of course turn them back on at any time. You can check the status of whether the ads are running or not here: www.facebook.com/ads/library/...
All of the paid digital ads that Eric Swalwell's campaign was running on Facebook/Instagram (including some running earlier today) have stopped running & their status is set to "Inactive"
It's unclear if this is a temporary pause, a permanent pause or a quick of the Meta archive
Was curious about spending on Facebook/Instagram political ads mentioning "Ice"
Spending has dropped from high point, but is still elevated
4% of all money spent this year mentioned Ice
Advertisers spent at least $12.8M so far in 2026
Last graphic is just spending from last month by advertiser
I've been tracking Election Day voter turnout all day for @nbcnews.com in the #GA14 special election.
More people are voting today than voted during the first round on March 10.
www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru...
The targeted digital ads spending I'm tracking (aarenge.shinyapps.io/2026_meta_CD...) is always a little behind.
But as of a week ago, spending from Conservatives for American Excellence in #GA14 saw a jump. American Mission has been outspending folks in the district for a while
Do we think the GOP is worried about tomorrow's #GA14 runoff?
American Mission, the pro-AI group, spent $182K on Google ads adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/A...
Conservatives for American Excellence spent $64K adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/A...
MTG won this seat by ~30 points in '24
On Tuesday, Wisconsin will vote for a new State Supreme Court justice - just like they did last year
In last year's hotly contested election, spending on Meta political ads topped out at $290K in the badger state on a single day
So far, this year's high water mark has been $66K on a single day
🚨 The group Justice for Democracy just started running this paid digital ad in Virginia
The ad uses images from the Civil Rights era to try to convince voters to vote **against** the redistricting effort in Virginia (the GOP position)
The ad is only running in very specific communities
Top spenders on WinRed linking Meta ads so far in 2026
Michele Tafoya - $70K
Vivek Ramaswamy - $70K
Bruce Blakeman - $60K
Maria Lazar - $55K
Lindsey Graham - $26K
Steve Scalise - $20K
Pete Ricketts - $15K
Tim Burchett - $14K
Susan Collins - $13.8K
Marsha Blackburn - $13.3K
Spending on Facebook + Instagram ads linking out to WinRed is *down* quite significantly from this point in 2022
Q1 2022 - $2.9M
Q1 2026 - $502K
Top spenders on ActBlue linking Meta ads so far in 2026 (cont)
Progressive Turnout Project - $151K
Harry Dunn - $137K
Ilhan Omar - $128K
Amy Klobuchar - $128K
Earle Ford - $127K
Chris Deluzio - $113K
Elizabeth Warren - $109K
John Hickenlooper - $103K
Manny Rutinel - $100K
Top spenders on ActBlue linking Meta ads so far in 2026 (cont)
Dr. Annie Andrews - $179K
Eugene Vindman - $173K
Marialana Kinter - $171K
Elissa Slotkin - $165K
AOC - $160K
Seth Bodnar - $159K
Katie Porter - $156K
David Hogg - $155K
Sherrod Brown - $151K
Top spenders on ActBlue linking Meta ads so far in 2026 (cont)
Josh Shapiro - $513K
Alexander Vindman - $425K
George Conway - $395K
Graham Platner - $365K
Eileen Laubacher - $323K
Mary Peltola - $309K
Shawn Harris - $270K
314Action - $235K
Gina Hinojosa - $226K
Roy Cooper- $185K
Top spenders on ActBlue linking Meta ads so far in 2026
James Talarico - $3.6M
Democrats (DNC/DCCC) - $2.7M
Jon Ossoff - $1.9M
Pete Buttigieg - $951K
State + Local Election Alliance - $919K
Jasmine Crockett - $867K
Womens March - $755K
Mark Kelly - $695K
Mallory McMorrow - $633K
Digital political advertisers spent at least $27.4M on Facebook/Instagram ads linking to ActBlue in Q1 of this year (that's +5x what was spent on these ads in Q1 of 2022)
Didn't see as big of an uptick as I was expecting for the end of the quarter - that's usually the high point
Spending on Facebook + Instagram political ads in the United States just recently passed $150M for the year (likely happened a few days ago...but Meta didn't post accurate daily spending data for Mar 18-21)
Puts spending this year ~$35M ahead of where we were at the same point in 2022 & 2024
Seems also notable to flag that Buttigieg was the largest Meta digital political advertiser last Tuesday (March 24). Spent more than every other political advertiser
This is the 20th time his page was the largest single day advertiser - but the first time since 2019
Pete Buttigieg has seen an uptick in his spending on Facebook + Instagram ads as we approach the Q1 fundraising deadline
Spent well over $1M on Meta ads this year (exact number is higher than presented below since we're missing 4 days of accurate spending data from Meta)
Finally updated the dashboard tracking spending on geotargeted digital political ads in specific Congressional Districts
(Meta didn't update their data for a while...producing an unavoidable gap)
~$50M spent on Meta + Google ads targeting CDs this cycle
aarenge.shinyapps.io/2026_meta_CD...
Group ran a very similar paid digital ad on Snapchat in GA ahead of the #GA14 special election a few weeks ago (spent $450 for 197K impressions)
They had targeted a slightly wider group of interests:
- Clubbers & Party People
- Comedy Fans
- Hip-Hop Music Fans
- Soul & R&B Fans
The group DemsVote just started running this new paid digital on Snapchat in Wisconsin ahead of the State Supreme Court race on April 7th.
The ad is running statewide & is being targeted at people whose are interests include:
- Clubbers & Party People
- Hip-Hop Music Fans
We're now on the 7th incomplete daily update from the Meta political ad archive where every advertiser is recorded as spending less than $100😑
Paused updating this interactive visualization tracking Meta political ad spending since the data clearly isn't accurate: rpubs.com/aarenge/face...
NEW: The NRCC just started running this new paid digital ad on Facebook and Instagram earlier today blaming Democrats for long TSA lines at airports.
The ads are likely only running in very specific Congressional Districts across the country (we'll know more in a few days)
