FWIW: March 27, 2026

FWIW, U.S. political advertisers spent about $5.6 million on Facebook and Instagram ads last week. Here were the top ten spenders nationwide:

For the second week in a row, James Talarico and Tom Steyer are the only left-leaning spenders on this list. And top performer Liberty Asset Champions (see here) outspent both of them combined.

Meanwhile, political advertisers spent just over $6.8 million on Google and YouTube ads last week. These were the top ten spenders nationwide:

The primary to succeed California Governor Gavin Newsom is coming up on June 2nd and in case you haven’t been following that shitshow, allow us to catch you up. So far, there isn’t a clear frontrunner in the race and this past Tuesday, USC canceled a planned debate featuring five white candidates amid controversy that the criteria were purposely designed to exclude candidates of color. In the aftermath of the decision, Tom Steyer said he would host a self-funded town hall for the whole squad that same night. Ultimately, that too did not pan out due to “logistical challenges.”

So now, here we are. Ballots will begin to go out to voters in just over 5 weeks and California’s jungle primary system means that the top two vote-getters in June, regardless of party, will advance to the general election. As it stands, polling shows the fifty jillion Democratic candidates splitting the vote so badly that Republicans Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco could find themselves facing off in November (which would frankly be embarrassing for all involved).

For the most part, billionaire Tom Steyer has been the only gubernatorial candidate to consistently make Google and YouTube ad investments worthy of top ten honors. This month, he’s been joined by independent committees backing Matt Mahan (“Deliver for California” and “California Back to Basics”), and now this week, we can add “Californians for a Fighter,” a PAC supporting Eric Swalwell’s campaign, to the list. It’s safe to assume there will be a lot more activity from California gubernatorial hopefuls online and across the airwaves over the next few months. Will it be enough to avoid a CADEM crisis in November? We shall see.

On X (formerly Twitter), political advertisers in the U.S. have spent around $1.8 million on ads in 2026. According to X’s political ad disclosure, here are the top spenders year to date:

…and lastly, on Snapchat, political advertisers in the U.S. have spent just over $583,000 on ads in 2026. Here are the top spenders year to date: