Former President Donald Trump’s campaign is underway Facebook advertisements to raise money indictment by a New York grand juryleveraging the platform he only regained access to in February after a two-year ban triggered by the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
On Friday, Trump’s presidential campaign began running ads on Facebook criticizing the indictment and urging supporters to help by donating, according to the social media giant’s advertising records. Records show at least three different Trump campaign fundraising ads that take advantage of the indictment.
“The radical left – the enemy of hardworking men and women in this country – has INCHARGED me in a disgusting witch hunt,” reads a Facebook ad that ran Friday. “Please donate $47 or more by 11:59 p.m. to help DEFEND our movement against endless witch hunts in these dark times – and we’ll send you your very own ‘I’m With President Trump’ T-shirt for free .”
The 11:59 a.m. deadline marks the end of the Q1 fundraising period for all campaigns. The Facebook ads, running on Trump’s page, say they were paid for by the Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee. The political action committee raises funds for the Trump campaign and Save America, the former president’s executive PAC. of trump 2020 campaign and the Save America PAC previously spent millions of dollars in legal fees.
Facebook’s ad archives show that the majority of those who saw that one Friday fundraiser ad are men and women over the age of 65. States where the ad aired include Florida, Texas, California and Pennsylvania, among the most populous and politically significant. in the country.
The ads highlight Trump’s efforts on mailing lists and social media platforms to capitalize on the heightened attention the indictment has brought to raising money, which he can use to times for its 2024 bid and legal fees. They also show how critical Facebook’s reach is for the former president – and what his campaign missed during the two-year suspension that Facebook implemented amid fears that Trump could foment more violence through the platform.
The Trump campaign began ramping up fundraising ads on Facebook earlier in March after Trump was reinstated on the platform in FEBRUARY, according to publicity records. While the platform has always provided a key fundraising tool for Trump when he gained access to it, the indictment offered a unique window to rally small donors through his social media page.
“While the platform is moving away from stimulating political content, it remains a powerful tool for Trump to raise funds and spread his messages,” Kyle Tharp, who follows and writes about digital ads in the newsletter FWIW, told CNBC. Tharp said that because Trump has millions of followers eager to hear what he has to say, the “campaign is smart to engage them — even around his indictment.”
Trump has 34 million followers on Facebook.
Trump aims to tap into the enthusiasm of his supporters as he tries to cement his status as the top frontrunner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary. The prospect of an indictment hasn’t seemed to dampen GOP support for him: the ex-president had more than 50% support during the Republican primary for the president in a recent Fox News poll.
A Trump campaign spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment when asked how much the former president’s campaign had raised since the indictment. Asked to comment, a Facebook spokesperson referred CNBC to the company January announcement about the end of Trump’s suspension and the standards he faces now that he’s back on the platform.
The Facebook ads come in addition to fundraising emails Trump’s campaign sent to supporters, asking for contributions after the New York grand jury vote.
Democrats and Republicans sent out emails calling on donors to contribute and tying the demands to the indictment.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Senate Majority PAC, two committees dedicated to electing Democrats to the Senate, to extinguish fundraising pitches related to the charges against Trump.
Representatives of the Democrats and Republicans who raised money on the indictment did not respond to requests for comment.
ActBlue, the digital fundraising platform often used by Democratic campaigns, shows the online tool processed well over $3 million in contributions between the indictment and Friday afternoon., according to its live tracker. A spokesperson for ActBlue declined to comment.
A spokeswoman for WinRed, the rival online fundraising platform for Republicans, did not provide details on how much the online platform has helped raise for lawmakers and presidential candidates. GOP.
Trump’s rage over the indictment particularly drew his page, according to data provided to CNBC by FWIW. Data shows that Trump’s Facebook post with his initial statement reacting to the indictment, which called the New York grand jury’s decision a “political persecution”, received over 275,000 engagements, including reactions, shares, and comments. It has been shared at least 25,000 times by Facebook users, the group said.
Even before the indictment, Trump’s presence on Facebook since his reinstatement has garnered huge engagement.
Facebook’s Top 10, a Twitter bot that tracks the top posts on the social media platform, said in a tweet last Friday that Trump’s page had one of Facebook’s “highest performing link posts.” Americans in the last 24 hours”.
A of the two Facebook posts in those 24 hours showed Trump in a video calling on his followers to donate to his campaign.
“If you don’t have the funds, you don’t even have to think about doing it,” Trump said in the video. “But if you could contribute, if you did well, if you remember those great four years where you won a lot, we need your help to release some massive numbers.”
This video alone has over 375,000 views.