Republican Candidates’ Ads Remain Quiet on Trump’s Indictments
Only Trump, Ramaswamy, and Johnson have mentioned the issue
For the first time in United States’ history, a major Presidential candidate is running for office while simultaneously facing criminal prosecution. On March 30, 2023, a New York grand jury indicted Trump for falsifying business records to conceal payments, including one made to Stormy Daniels for $130,000. A little over a month later on June 8, 2023, Trump was indicted again, this time by a Federal court, for unlawfully retaining classified documents and obstructing justice by refusing their return.
Establishment Republican candidates avoid the indictments in their ads
Despite this being a historical first, voters remain largely agnostic to the news as Trump’s polling numbers hardly moved. Republican 2024 Presidential candidates have also been relatively quiet. Several expressed the desire to pardon Trump should they assume office. Yet, few have mentioned the issue in their advertising. Only Donald Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Perry Johnson have aired ads relating to the indictment.
Trump has primarily used this as a fundraising opportunity. Ramaswamy and Johnson ads are ingratiating themselves within the Trump base likely to boost their own brands for post-campaign options like punditry or political appointments. Republican challengers with more of a shot at winning the Primary may find themselves in a tricky position of either endorsing their Trump’s messaging making him more of a martyr or opposing it and risking alienating votes from Trump’s base and have, therefore, opted to remain silent unless directly asked by reporters.
The first indictment created more buzz
We collected Meta Ads from the date of the first indictment, March 30, through June 20, 2023 that mention indict*, arraign*, pardon*, or arrest* alongside Trump. This amounted to $285,235 spent on 1,330 ads amassing 19,553,670 impressions.
The spike in ad volume after the first indictment was larger than the second filled with a relatively quiet period in between. This spike is even larger in spending terms.
The indictments have animated conservative advertisers more
Much of the attention is driven by conservative advertisers who comprised 56% of the ad volume, 85% of the spend, and 94% of the impressions. Their ads received 40% more impressions per dollar.
On the left, ads mentioning the indictments warn against incitement and the erosion of the rule of law.
Meanwhile, on the Right, there are ads that call the indictments a “witch hunt” and “political vengeance” or allege a double standard in media coverage.
Many, 88 of the 1,330 ads (6.6%), go as far as thinly-veiled antisemitism. They blame Jewish Holocaust Survivor George Soros for the charges.
Newsmax gained more impressions than everyone else combined
Four advertisers — Adam Schiff (233), Donald Trump (215), Proud Patriots (181), and MoveOn (142) — aired more than 100 ads about the indictments during the 5 week window. It was Newsmax that led advertisers by far in both amount spent and impressions, followed by Trump. Newsmax spent $119,000 on 12 million impressions while Trump spent $86,000 on 3.8 million impressions.
Americans for Limited Government, a Koch-funded conservative non-profit, was the most effective advertiser on an impressions-per-dollar basis. They received 657 impressions per dollar, nearly 16x the average of 42. By contrast, Facebook charged prominent Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (14), Ilhan Omar (18), and Adam Schiff (19) significantly more per impression than the average advertiser in this dataset.
Conclusion
While advertiser behavior might change over the course of the criminal proceedings, the data initially show conservatives have focused on the issue more than liberals. They aired more ads, spent more money, and garnered more impressions aided by a lower cost per impression.
The code and data to reproduce this piece can be found here.
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