Joe Biden's presidential campaign has sharply scaled back his online advertising, cutting spending so severely since August that he is now investing only a fraction of what his top rivals are on Facebook and Google, the two dominant internet platforms. In a race where many voters are following
Joe Biden’s presidential campaign has sharply scaled back his online advertising, cutting spending so severely since August that he is now investing only a fraction of what his top rivals are on Facebook and Google, the two dominant internet platforms.
Biden’s campaign strategy has been driven, from the start, by the political assumption that the Democratic electorate is more moderate than the progressives who are often loudest online, and he has built his candidacy around appealing to older and more centrist voters. But strategists say Biden’s online pullback is risky if he hopes to engage and build support among a broader cross-section of Democrats that is almost certainly necessary to win the nomination.
Online spending serves two purposes: Promoting the candidates’ messages and raising money. But if Biden struggles to collect small donations online, he will have to depend more on traditional donors and bundlers while his two leading rivals, Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, emphasize their grassroots support.
“Our campaign invested a robust digital spend early on to build out supporter lists, outspending all other campaigns from our launch through most of the summer,” said T.J. Ducklo, a spokesman for Biden. “By strategically front-loading our investment, we were able to rapidly expand our reach early, instead of meting out our spending over a longer period of time.”
But in the last six weeks for which data is available, Biden spent a meager $20,900 on Google, a platform that includes both the internet’s dominant search engine and YouTube. In that same six-week span, Warren spent more than 25 times as much: $553,700. As Biden has withdrawn from Facebook and Google, he has bought up more than $700,000 in television ads in recent weeks in Iowa. Despite those ads, Warren recently edged ahead of him in the closely monitored Des Moines Register poll of likely Iowa caucusgoers.
Biden has also wrapped his candidacy in an aura of inevitability, which does not allow him to sound the alarm to supporters, a tactic that can juice online giving.
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