Campaigns
‘Gen Z Is in the House!’ and Other Cringe Moments in the Democrats’ Shutdown Marathon
Politico
“In launching the livestream, which featured the feel of a throwback telethon with none of the charisma or surprise, Jeffries and his allies seemed to tacitly acknowledge that they needed to be fighting, and sounding and looking as if they were.”
FEC Member Resigns, Deepening Crisis at Watchdog Agency
Campaigns & Elections
“As of April, there were 161 pending enforcement matters before the FEC. In an interview with Campaigns & Elections over the summer, Broussard acknowledged the challenges at the agency stemming from the absence of a quorum, but said she was hopeful that Trump would soon nominate new members so the commission could get back to work.”
Fundraising
The Fundraising-Industrial Complex Is Eating American Politics
On Data And Democracy
“In 2004, political campaigns spent 9 cents of every dollar raised on fundraising operations. By 2024, that number had reached 30 cents. American political campaigns are raising more and more money less and less efficiently…It reveals that campaigns are now spending 38 cents of every dollar raised just to raise more money—a fourfold increase from the 9 cents spent in 2004. In raw terms, campaigns burned through $3 billion on fundraising operations in 2024 alone.”
International
Google Just Removed Seven Years of Political Advertising History from 27 Countries
404 Media
“The change is in response to the EU’s upcoming Regulation on Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising (TTPA), a law set to enter full force on October 10. The TTPA lays out new regulations for advertisers in the EU, including requirements that political ads “must be clearly labelled as such and include information on who paid for it, to which election, referendum, legislative or regulatory process it is linked and whether targeting or ad-delivery techniques have been used,” according to an EU summary of the law, and limits targeting and ad delivery of political advertising to strict conditions, including requiring consent from ads’ targets that their data be used for political advertising.”
Social Media
More Americans than ever now get news on TikTok, Pew finds
Nieman Lab
“Older adults are also turning to it more frequently for news. In Pew’s survey, 43% of adults under 30 said they regularly get news on TikTok, up from 9% five years ago, while a quarter of adults between the ages of 30 and 49 also get news there regularly, compared to just 2% in 2020.”
More Americans are getting news on TikTok, bucking the trend seen on most other social media sites
Pew Research
“When looking at adult TikTok users specifically, news consumption has also increased sharply in recent years. More than half of TikTok users (55%) now say they regularly get news on the platform, up from 22% in 2020. TikTok is now on par with several other social media sites – including X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and Truth Social – in the share of its adult users who regularly get news there.”
How the emerging TikTok deal could scramble politics on the platform
Chaotic Era
“For years, most Republican politicians and their digital teams have stayed off of TikTok, citing concerns about the app’s Chinese ownership. GOP governors, senators, members of Congress, and all of the party’s committees have largely been absent from a platform used daily by tens of millions of key voters.”