Advertising
Secret weapon or ‘slopaganda’? How AI is revolutionizing campaign advertising.
Washington Post
“Republicans are embracing AI ads to a far greater extent than Democrats. Eighty percent of the ads tallied in the Wesleyan Media Project analysis came from GOP candidates and groups supporting them.”
How the Political Ad Wars Are Unfolding Right Now
Campaigns & Elections
“Democrats have spent nearly twice as much on digital advertising as Republicans have, and that holds true across every type of spender.”
Campaigns
Hispanic Democrats tap creators for voter outreach
Semafor
“The ‘Así se Dice’ campaign, part of the group’s RUIDO initiative, includes 14 different Latino creators who will receive briefings from BOLD PAC on issues important to Latino voters with the option of rebroadcasting the messaging to their audiences. None of the creators are being paid for content (a controversial issue in campaigns this cycle).”
Content
MAGA Podcasters Are Tuning Out Trump. We Tracked What They Are Talking About Now.
Wall Street Journal
“But MAGA podcasters aren’t playing along. Mentions of Trump’s name per hour on conservative podcasts have fallen nearly 70% from their peak in the run-up to the 2024 election.”
Data
‘It Would Cost Us Millions’: New Jersey Law Has Political Data Brokers on Edge
Campaigns & Elections
“Violators can face fines of up to $50,000 per record. In a state with more than 6.7 million registered voters, political data brokers could be looking at billions of dollars in liability.”
Design
The MAGA Box now comes in blue
Yello
“A review of available Democratic and Republican U.S. House and Senate campaign websites shows that 72 candidates are using MAGA Box-style or rectangular logos in this year’s midterm election. That’s more than any other year before, and surprisingly, half of them are Democrats.”
Fundraising
Right-Wing Groups Are Making Money off John Fetterman
The Atlantic
“Fetterman’s refusal to limit himself to the Democratic ecosystem could matter a great deal next year, especially if he finds himself as the decisive swing vote and holds the power to decide which party will control the Senate.”
AI hijacking: the next frontier in donor confusion
Blue State
“And, disturbingly, one of the pages Google’s AI suggested looked like it was created to raise money for Talarico but was actually sending donations to Sen. John Hickenlooper’s re-election campaign.”
Social Media
Is the partisan YouTube boom cooling off?
Chaotic Era
“The slowdown this quarter is pretty striking: in aggregate, top political YouTube channels added roughly 67% fewer net new subscribers than they did in the same quarter a year ago (Q3 2025) — and about 20% fewer than just last quarter (Q2 2026).”
We all live in an information bubble.
FWIW
“This is the number that really caught my attention: 87% of my network says politics is ‘very important’ to their personal identity, compared to just 30% of voters.”
Technology
AI Slop Isn’t the Problem. AI Candy Is.
Katie Harbath
“Maybe you know it’s synthetic, and maybe you don’t. But either way, it’s so good at giving you what you want that you eventually stop asking many questions about where it came from.”
AI Is Changing What Campaigns Should Expect From Voter Outreach
Campaigns & Elections
“For example, sending a message to 100,000 people was never really the hard part. The hard part is handling the 20,000 replies and ensuring each one receives a response and feels engaged.”
Q&A with Eric Wilson
National Journal
“We’re now having this style of literature that’s almost like Wikipedia that we’re going to have to start writing for because the AIs really like them.”