blog 2.4 trump and social media

1. 1.6 million 
2. And instead of trying to persuade voters who live in the states that will decide 2020, he appears to instead be trying to rile up his base (and get their information if he doesn’t already have it). His campaign is using Facebook ads as a way to reinforce the narrative cycle from the White House, Republican lawmakers, and conservative media that impeachment is a political plot against the president by Democrats.
3. His ads, by and large, don’t deal with the substance of the allegations — that he and his administration tried to leverage US foreign policy to convince Ukraine to investigate a personal political rival — and instead push conspiracies. They are a way for the president’s reelection campaign to build voter lists, streamline in potential volunteers and donors, and keep public opinion from swinging too far out of Trump’s favor.
4. $284 million
5. Since running that first ad, Trump’s campaign has spent a small fortune on impeachment ads — nearly 30 percent of his total Facebook ad spend in that time.
6. The vast majority of that ad spending — 90 percent — was aimed at people over the age of 35, with nearly 30 percent of that spending geared toward people 65 and over.
7. What Trump is not doing is focusing impeachment ads — or Facebook ads in general — campaigns such as Trump’s lean heavily into trying to get people who already like him engaged and out to vote, and getting them riled up helps that. And that’s what Facebook’s algorithm is built to do: keep people engaged, often with content that reinforces their views or prompts a strong reaction.
8. Trump’s strategy on impeachment puts pressure on Republicans to hold the line. 
9. He has a vast campaign infrastructure and millions upon millions of dollars behind him. At the end of the third quarter of this year, his campaign had $83 million in cash on hand. The best-funded Democratic candidate, Bernie Sanders, has $33 million.
10. Warren, who called for Trump’s impeachment after the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report this spring, is dedicating most of her Facebook impeachment spend to states with a lot of people. She’s list-building. And while her original messaging was around the Mueller report, she is now also running ads on the current impeachment inquiry in Congress- targeting the states Democrats most need to win if they want to defeat him next year: Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin.