Texas Sen. Ted Cruz Spends Over $240,000 On Facebook Advertising In Last Two Months
(CBSDFW.COM) – Facebook has begun accepting political ads again and Texas Senator Ted Cruz-R is second only to Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock-D in ad spending on the platform.
That according to an article posted online at Politico.com and confirmed to CBS 11 by the Cruz Campaign.
Cruz spent $240,000 while Warnock spent $335,000. The Texas Senator isn't up for reelection until 2024.
According to the article, Republicans say the advertising approach "could help Cruz raise dollars online and cultivate and collect email addresses of small dollar donors."
"We have seen — more and more — the rise of the woke corporations, of corporate CEOs behaving –essentially — as the political enforcers of the Democratic Party," said Cruz on April 29.
Cruz said his campaign will be funded by individuals. "Big business has decided that they want to crawl in bed with the radical left and the socialists and make common cause with them. I've decided enough is enough and so I announced today that I will no longer accept even one penny of contributions from any corporate PAC," said Cruz. "Americans are less than thrilled with [corporations] getting in bed with Bernie Sanders and AOC."
The advertising strategy is not unprecedented. Politico said Vice President Kamala Harris spent about $300,000 on digital ads in 2017 after she was elected senator and was rewarded with almost $750,000 in small-dollar donations.
Cruz's spending has, Like Harris', also led to an increase in smaller donations. "His campaign and allied groups raised $5.3 million in the first quarter of this year — 98 percent of which came in increments of $100 or less, according to Cruz's team," according to the article.
Is this an indication of Cruz's presidential aspirations? Republican digital strategist Eric Wilson told Politico that he does not think that Cruz intends to run. "This is what you need to run for reelection as a senator," he said.
