SAN FRANCISCO — Democrats are massively outspending Republicans on internet campaign ads but one social network is a notable exception: X, owned by Elon Musk, who has increasingly used the platform to elevate his chosen candidate, former president Donald Trump.
Accounts backing Republican candidates spent three times as much on political ads on X than those backing Democrats from March 6 to Oct. 1 — $3 million to $1 million — according to an analysis of company data by AdImpact and The Washington Post.
The biggest political ad buyer on X is the official account for Trump, who has formed a close political alliance with Musk in recent months and was joined by the entrepreneur on stage at a rally Saturday. Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign has not bought a single ad on the platform.
Democrats dominate the much heavier campaign ad spending on the larger internet platforms such as Google, which owns YouTube, and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram. Overall, Harris has significantly outspent Trump on TV and digital advertising since President Joe Biden announced in late July that he was stepping aside, and she jumped into the race.
X’s emergence as a red bubble dominated by spending in support of the GOP provides a snapshot of how the platform has changed since Musk bought the social network formerly known as Twitter in 2022.
Musk has claimed his ownership of the platform transformed a space that was biased toward left-wing views into a “free speech public square.” He also loosened content rules and reinstated previously banned accounts who spread misinformation and conspiracy theories — including Trump’s.
Since endorsing Trump’s reelection run in July, Musk has frequently posted about his own right-wing political views on issues such as immigration and crime, including false claims about immigrants and electoral fraud, to his nearly 200 million followers.
“Conservatives feel more comfortable being on X,” said a Republican digital strategist working with pro-Trump candidates, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy. “With X we’ve seen a lot of success with fundraising, and that’s probably due to X being a bit more partisan in nature.”
Twitter did not allow political ads during the previous presidential election but historical data released by the company for 2018 and 2019 shows political ad spending had been dominated by Democrats. Musk lifted that restriction last year amid a broader decline in advertising after his acquisition.
The partisan shift in political advertising on X appears to reflect a classic strategy in campaign advertising: Meet supporters where they are.
Nu Wexler, a political strategist who served as a spokesman for Twitter, Facebook and Google, said the platform has always been a place for “political junkies” with entrenched views who are less persuadable than those on other platforms, like Facebook. But since Musk’s takeover, he said, Democrats likely feel there’s less of an audience for them on X, he said, and “don’t want to give Elon Musk their money.”
In August, X chief executive Linda Yaccarino said the platform’s user base in the United States was evenly balanced politically, made up of 37 million Democrats, 32 million Republicans and 34 million swing voters. She did not detail how that data was collected and X did not respond to a request for comment.
X has a much smaller user base than other major platforms: 22 percent of Americans reported ever using the platform in a 2023 Pew Research Center survey, compared to 83 percent who said they had used YouTube and 68 percent who said they had used Facebook.
But the platform can be appealing for campaigns searching for a way to reach people who are highly politically engaged and more likely to donate, according to campaign consultants and experts on political advertising.
“This is an activist audience, more inclined to fish out their wallets,” said Shanto Iyengar, director of Stanford’s Political Communication Lab. Many of the ads purchased on X by Republican-backing accounts are fundraising appeals, but others, including from the America PAC, a super PAC co-founded by Musk to boost Trump, echo the rhetoric of the former president.
One America PAC ad that ran in September stated that the former president’s political opponents “tried to kick Trump off your ballot. They even tried to end his campaign and take him out for good.” Another ad that month falsely claimed that Harris “released” illegal immigrants into the United States. She has never been in charge of the border, which is managed by the Department of Homeland Security.
The Musk-backed PAC has significantly increased its ad spending on his social network in recent weeks. The committee’s outlay on X ads has nearly quadrupled since August, totaling $160,711 as of Oct. 1, according to company disclosures analyzed by The Post.
Social media ads are increasingly important to political campaigns as they attempt to reach voters — especially those younger in age — more effectively than can television and radio spots.
According to AdImpact, the 2024 election is set to be the most expensive of all time, with a projected $10.2 billion spent across all forms of media, including broadcast TV and digital ads. That would represent a 13 percent increase from the former record set during the previous presidential election.
In total, $7.13 million has been spent on political ads on X from March 6 — the day after Super Tuesday — to Oct. 1, according to AdImpact data. Far more is being spent on other platforms.
Political advertisers on Meta’s platforms have spent $325.1 million in the same time period — and Democrats are vastly outpacing Republicans. The top political ad spender is the Harris Victory Fund, an official Harris fundraising committee, at $33.6 million. The top spender on ads supporting Republicans is Trump’s official joint fundraising committee, the Trump National Committee, at $8 million.
On Google’s platforms, including ads on its search engine and YouTube, political advertisers have spent $336.1 million between March 6 and Oct. 1. The Harris Victory Fund was again the biggest spender at $53.1 million, while a joint fundraising committee for Trump is the top spender for Republicans at $23.1 million.
Twitter previously won many more campaign ad dollars from Democrats than Republicans. From June 2018 to November 2019, shortly after the platform banned political ads, the top three political ad buyers in the United States were all Democrats running for president, according to company data analyzed by The Post.
The top spender? Harris, then a Democratic senator from California, who bought about $186,600 worth of ads on the platform in that period, which includes her run for president during the 2020 election cycle. The second-highest was Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who also campaigned for president in 2020.
Harris has not bought an ad on Musk’s X since he lifted the political ad ban, according to company disclosures, although her campaign still uses the platform to actively promote the candidate.
The Biden campaign also snubbed the platform before he dropped out of the race in July, with his deputy campaign manager telling Politico in 2023 that the campaign views the platform as an “increasingly hostile place.”
As of Oct. 1, an account for Trump’s campaign had spent a little over $700,000 on ads that have mostly been fundraising appeals. “If you can afford to donate, we need your help to fight RADICAL LEFT and ELITES backing Harris’s campaign,” reads one ad purchased in July, according to company data.
Other top Republican spenders on X according to AdImpact are U.S. senators Rand Paul (R-Ky.), whose term ends in 2026, and Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who is running for reelection in November.
The top spenders for Democrats are all running for office in red or swing states: Debbie Mucarsel-Powell in Florida, Colin Allred in Texas and Ruben Gallego in Arizona. The three have together spent $515,000, less than Trump’s campaign alone.
Tyler Brown, the former director of digital strategy for the Republican National Committee, said campaigns backing both parties are still trying to figure out how best to use X because it hadn’t been an option for campaign ads in the past two election cycles.
Musk has been criticized “on the left” for using the platform to amplify his own politics, Brown said, but it has always been a place where people go to engage in debate. “What I find more interesting is that Democrats, despite the criticisms that are directed at Musk and the platform, continue to be advertising on it at all,” he said.
Andrea Jimenez contributed to this report.