Advertising
Forget Reach. Elections Are Won On Emotion and Relevance
Campaigns & Elections
“Elections are won by the campaign that connects when voters are most receptive. In a high-cost, high-noise environment, relevance beats reach. And emotion, properly understood and responsibly applied, remains the decisive variable.”
Campaigns
AI-generated pro-Spencer Pratt mayoral campaign videos point to a new political reality
NBC News
“But politicians should also be wary of harming their message by aligning themselves too closely with AI-generated media, Wilson said. Tests by the AAPC have shown that adding AI disclaimers to videos decreases trust among viewers, regardless of whether the videos were actually AI-generated.”
Fundraising
ELB Book Corner: Albert and La Raja: “Small Donors Aren’t Who You Think They Are”
Election Law Blog
“When Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September 2020, small donors on ActBlue contributed $45 million to Democratic candidates within 24 hours – before many candidates had even issued a fundraising appeal. The surge was immediate, emotional, and largely disconnected from electoral strategy.”
ActBlue C.E.O. Agrees to Testify Before Congress About Foreign Donor Vetting
New York Times
“ActBlue’s lawyer, Vincent Cohen, last month dismissed the House Republicans’ investigation and proposed that they ‘reconsider their current approach’ to the organization. In the letter, he said ActBlue had stopped processing contributions from American citizens abroad, rendering questions about such future vetting moot.”
Comer Subpoenas Sixteen Thirty Fund Documents Related to Dark Money Operation
House Oversight
“To date, the Committee’s investigation has found that influencers paid through the Chorus program generated content advocating for candidates, ballot initiatives, and political parties in U.S. elections despite restrictions Chorus reportedly attempted to impose.”
Social Media
Everyone’s running anonymous political accounts now
Chaotic Era
“For opposition research in particular, these types of anonymous accounts and brands serve as a perfect, usually untraceable vehicle for pushing research into the feeds of high-profile strategists and reporters, driving the conversation online. Even an X account with a modest following, like @MaineStatePress, can drop a nugget of information and watch campaign staffers and political reporters reshare it within minutes, setting off an entire news cycle.”
Political Money Is Flowing to Influencers. But From Whom?
New York Times
“Mr. Espina’s arrangement provides a rare glimpse into the world of pay-for-play social media, where content creators and marketing firms are increasingly compensated to promote candidates or points of view and where there are few requirements for disclosure. The paid advocacy exists outside the realm of traditional lobbying and campaigning, reaching younger, more online audiences unlikely to be swayed by television advertisements or glossy mailers.”
Technology
Are Democrats Ready for Our First Truly AI Election?
Josh Klemons
“On the Harris campaign, his team fed thousands of post-shift volunteer feedback surveys into a language model and got back structured reports by date, state, and issue type. What would have required an engineer and custom code 18 months ago, he says you could now do by dragging a folder into Claude.”
White House
Inside Donald Trump’s AI ‘slopaganda’ machine
Financial Times
“AI has allowed him to produce faster, more resonant posts that attack opponents, dramatise policy ideas and mythologise himself. The images have turned his feed into a rolling stream of AI-generated spectacle: imagined military victories, religious iconography and fantasy infrastructure projects.”