McGrath vs McConnell — who’s spent the most on Facebook?

A recent report revealed the amounts both Amy McGrath and Mitch McConnell have spent on advertising on Facebook, and the results may surprise you.

The report was produced by the Facebook Ad Observatory, which is part of the Online Political Transparency Project at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering. According to their website, “this nonpartisan, independent project is focused on improving the transparency of online political advertising, by deploying traditional methods used in cybersecurity to evaluate the vulnerabilities of online sites. The Project builds tools to collect and archive political advertising data, and makes these available publicly.”

The site is full of interesting and occasionally bizarre findings, such as the fact that a single QAnon supporter has spent $72,000 on Facebook ads since July 1. And, of course, the site leads with information on national spending by the Trump and Biden campaigns.

But, they also break down spending by state and by candidate, and even draw the graphs for you. So, let’s see what’s happening in Kentucky.

Overall Facebook ad spend in Kentucky

Here’s the leaders in ad spend on Facebook ads targeting Kentucky.

President Trump’s campaign has spent close to a million dollars on Facebook ads in the state, while the Biden campaign has spent about a fourth of that.

And yes, McGrath has outspent McConnell by a substantial amount on FB ads in Kentucky. Her campaign apparently believes advertising on Facebook is a good way to reach Kentuckians.

Nationwide FB ad spending by McConnell and McGrath

After seeing the earlier graph, you may be confused by this one. “I thought Amy had outspent Mitch on FB ads?”

Here’s the catch – the first graph was spending for ads only in Kentucky, while the second is for total spend across the nation. In other words, McConnell has spent $1.3 million on Facebook ads showing up in all 50 states, while McGrath has only spent about $882,000 on ads across the nation.

Just to recap with the numbers:

So why is McConnell spending so much outside the state? Well, look at the next graph.

Goals of the FB ads by candidate

McConnell’s ads are about one thing, and one thing only: give me money. Remember, he’s raising money for both himself and for other campaigns on the Republican side. He knows everyone knows him, he knows at this point he’s not going to persuade anyone. His entire campaign strategy is to tear down McGrath. So, his nation-wide ads are about giving money.

Timing of the ad spends

So what happened at the end of August? The Republican National Convention, of course. McConnell’s big spike in FB ads was right before that took place, which McGrath’s was right after.

But what else happened around that time? McGrath changed campaign managers in the middle of August. It would seem, then, that the new campaign manager, Dan Kanninen, decided to start spending much more on Facebook, because not only did it spike right after the RNC, but even after dropping back, it’s still higher than even the highest amount under the previous campaign manager, Mark Nicholas.

Will it make a difference? That remains to be seen, especially since McConnell is spending more as well.

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