Facebook Said 'No Ads' In Georgia, Then Changed Their Mind So They Can Help Democrats

Written By BlabberBuzz | Saturday, 02 January 2021 05:45 AM
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Georgia’s runoff elections are just peachy for political fundraising – with lawmakers and political action committees from around the country stepping into the fray to shake out some cash.

Facebook halted political ads for a week prior to Election Day, but it announced earlier this month that they would temporarily resume before the runoffs.

Facebook will partially lift its self-imposed ban on political ads on Wednesday, allowing campaigns and parties to run digital ads only in Georgia, as the parties fight for Senate control in two runoffs.

In a statement released on its blog, Facebook said that while it's allowing Georgia-specific political ads ahead of the Jan. 5 U.S. Senate and state runoffs, it would still reject ads that “target locations outside of Georgia or that are not about the Georgia runoff elections.”

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Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler are both seeking to hold off challenges from Democrats Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock, respectively, after each candidate failed to get enough votes on Election Day to win outright. The runoff elections are set for Jan. 5.

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If the Democrats win both races, the Senate will see a 50-50 tie between the GOP and senators who caucus with the Democratic Party, which include independent Sens. Bernie Sanders and Angus King. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would represent a potential tie breaking vote, providing Democrats the control of both the legislative and executive branches.

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Publicly available Facebook ad-spending data shows a number of high-profile politicians have used the races and the candidates to raise funds for their own PACs, the Daily Beast reported Wednesday.

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They include members of both parties, among them Sens. Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and Kirsten Gillibrand, and incoming House members, who haven’t yet been sworn into Congress. They also include President Trump. They could still use the money raised for their PACs to campaign on behalf of the Georgia candidates, but most of it will be controlled by their respective committees.

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When the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump political action committee founded by conservatives, tweeted out the Daily Beast story, another Twitter user pointed to the group’s own Peach State fundraising.

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"The Lincoln Project raised $4.8 million between November 24th and December 16th hyping the Georgia Senate runoff elections," wrote Rob Pyers, of the nonpartisan California Target Book, which monitors and reports on political campaigns. "Since then, it has spent $1.1 million on independent expenditures in those races and paid Steve Schmidt $1.5 million."

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Schmidt, a co-founder of the Lincoln Project, was a Republican strategist for years before breaking with the party over President Trump. The Lincoln Project did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment on the matter.

The Georgia candidates themselves have raised record-breaking sums ahead of the runoffs.

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Both Ossoff and Warnock have raised more than $100 million each over the past two months. In the same span, both Perdue and Loeffler raised more than $60 million apiece.

The previous record of quarterly fundraising for a Senate campaign stood at $57 million.

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