FWIW: January 9, 2026

FWIW, U.S. political advertisers spent just under $11.2 million on Facebook and Instagram ads last week. Here were the top ten spenders nationwide:

Three Democratic senate candidates, Talarico, Ossoff, and Kelly, cracked the top 10 list, collectively spending over half a million dollars on Meta ads last week. The GOP side of the aisle was notably absent, perhaps focusing their efforts on a different platform (see below).

Humanitarian groups, which made up about half of this list, ran some serious end-of-year fundraising campaigns, outspending politicians by a mile. Doctors Without Borders dropped more money last week than any two senate candidates combined.

Meanwhile, political advertisers spent about $2.3 million on Google and YouTube ads last week. These were the top ten spenders nationwide:

ICYMI: Tom Steyer, who famously spent over $250 million during his 2020 presidential campaign only to come in third with 11% of the vote and no pledged delegates, is now running to succeed Gavin Newsom as governor of California. He spent less than $54K on Google and YouTube ads last week, but it’s safe to say, we can expect that number to get a lot higher in the coming days.

On X (formerly Twitter), political advertisers in the U.S. have spent just $6,700 on ads in 2026 so far. According to X’s political ad disclosure, here are the top spenders year to date… very much presented without comment, but if you’ve been on Twitter/X lately, this won’t come as a surprise:

Snapchat has not yet shared its political advertising data for 2026.