President Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign has quietly spent nearly double the entire field of Democratic presidential candidates for ads on Facebook and Google, according to a report on Tuesday.
Since Dec. 30, the Trump campaign has spent $5.6 million for the ads on the tech sites, an analysis by Bully Pulpit Interactive shows.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, whose campaign spent $626,426, was the president’s closest competitor in the group of Democratic hopefuls.
Following on Warren’s heels are Sens. Kamala Harris at $546,810, Bernie Sanders with $438,334, Cory Booker at $424,314 and Kirsten Gillibrand with $336,854.
Trump attacked the tech giants on Monday for being in the pocket of the Democrats.
“Facebook, Google and Twitter, not to mention the Corrupt Media, are sooo on the side of the Radical Left Democrats. But fear not, we will win anyway, just like we did before! #MAGA,” he wrote on Twitter.
Despite using the tech companies to boost her campaign, earlier this month she called for Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple to be broken up because of their overwhelming influence on online markets.
“The giant tech companies right now are eating up little, tiny business startups — and competing unfairly,” the Massachusetts Democrat told CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Rounding out the Democratic field are Washington Gov. Jay Inslee at $169,257, Beto O’Rourke with $107,705, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard with $134,398 and Sen. Amy Klobuchar at $91,501.
Bill Weld, the former Republican governor of Massachusetts who’s mounting a primary challenge against Trump, spent $1,396.
Following the 2016 election, Facebook came under withering criticism after special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation revealed that Russian hackers bought ads on the platform to sow discord and division among American voters.
Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign is headed up by Brad Parscale, who led the campaign’s digital efforts in 2016.
Parscale told “60 Minutes” in a June 2018 interview that he spent the bulk of the campaign’s digital budget for ads on Facebook during the 2016 race because the site allowed him to pinpoint precise audiences.
