Donald Trump, Planned Parenthood Among Top Facebook Ad Buyers This Summer

With its billions of monthly users, Facebook is considered fertile ground for political spending in the online age. President Trump has been the biggest recent spender for political ads on the platform and by a fairly wide margin, according to the New York Times.

The data comes from a study conducted by researchers from New York University which focused their findings on Facebook ad spending in May — when Facebook started letting any user see who paid for a political ad on their news feed. That level of transparency was a way to appease users' concerned about foreign meddling in U.S. elections but also allowed the researchers to figure out which domestic entities are spending the most on Facebook.

Trump’s political action committee paid $274,000 in Facebook ads since the researchers started collecting data more than two months ago. Facebook’s new ad data also includes engagement numbers, which are even broken down by demographics. According to the study, Trump ads were seen by 37 million people in a little more than two months.

Planned Parenthood came in second place in both categories, spending $188,000 on ads and racking up 24 million views since May. The National Rifle Association, meanwhile, got more than 18 million impressions on just $58,000 in spending.

The majority of spenders on Facebook in that time period were on the left side of the political spectrum, per the Times. As Democrats try to take back the House and Senate in the 2018 midterm elections this fall, Facebook will be an important battleground. The site boasted two million monthly users a year ago, a number that is unlikely to significantly shrink as Facebook introduces more services to keep people glued to their screens.

One such example is Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke, a challenger to Ted Cruz’s senate seat. O’Rourke spent nearly $200,000 on Facebook ads since May. He currently trails Cruz in the polls, according to RealClearPolitics.

Trump being at the front of the Facebook ad spending competition is no surprise. The president credited his unexpected 2016 election victory on the power of social media in October. His campaign spent more on ads in 2016 than opponent Hillary Clinton and there have been concerns about Russian interference through social media.

Trump is already raising money for a 2020 re-election bid. He already has $53 million on hand specifically for a 2020 campaign, according to CNN.