How Trump, O’Rourke, and the GOP lead the online political advertising race

Ever since President Trump’s win in 2016–which many attribute, in part, to his vast online advertising program–many have demanded more transparency for the ads that can be micro-targeted at voters on platforms like Facebook and Google. … A team of data scientists at NYU Tandon, led by professor Damon McCoy, have been crunching all the data they can get about political advertisers on Facebook, Google, and Twitter. In a paper published on Monday, they describe a survey of ads published in a two-week period this past September (it should be noted that all three platforms have different criteria for what they consider “political”). What’s clear is that the three companies’ advertising programs combined create an extremely powerful advertising engine.