While McConnell and Cruz’s ads have asked donors to give funds to help Republican Georgia Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Purdue, the fine print at the bottom of the linked donation pages shows that some of the funds go towards their own campaign committees as well, according to a recent report from The Daily Beast.
A McConnell spokesperson told the publication that his Georgia ads have raised over $3.4 million for the Republican candidates in Georgia. Newsweek reached out to McConnell’s office for information on how much has been raised for his personal campaign committee.
The publication also found similar online ads from Republican Representatives Cathy McMorris Rogers of Washington and Ashley Hinson which split all donations between their own campaigns and those of the Republican candidates in Georgia.
Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah is also running similar ads, but his office told The Daily Beast that his ads have raised “tens of thousands” for the Georgia Republicans and only $100 for Lee.
New York Democratic Representative Kirsten Gillibrand’s ads fundraising for Georgia’s Democratic candidates put donations into her Off the Sidelines PAC which supports Democratic candidates. However, PACs are only legally allowed to donate up to $5,000 to each candidate.
President Donald Trump has also been soliciting donations for the Georgia race with the fine print on his donation pages specifying that funds will benefit his own committee and the Republican National Committee.
Newsweek contacted McConnell, Cruz and Gillibrand’s offices, as well as the Trump campaign for comment.
On December 15, Facebook lifted its national ban on political ads so that politicians and their campaigns could run digital ads that display for users in Georgia in the run-up to the state’s January 5 special runoff election. The social network still rejects ads that target locations outside of Georgia or that aren’t about the state’s runoff election.
Google lifted its own national ban on political ads entirely, allowing ads to run both inside and outside of Georgia. Both Facebook and Google blocked political ads nationwide the week before the national elections as a measure instated to help reduce the broadcast of misinformation before and after Election Day.
Since May 31, 2018, Google has made over $734.5 billion from political ads, according to its own reporting. Facebook, comparatively has made an estimated $2.2 billion from over 11 million political ads since mid-2018. Those amounts include money spent to influence the November 2018 national midterm elections.
With one week left until the state’s special runoff election, more than half a dozen polls conducted in the past two weeks have shown the Democratic candidates as neck-and-neck or trading leader positions within the margin of error against their Republican opponents. The race will determine party control of the U.S. Senate.
A report released on December 22 showed that the Democratic candidates, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, had outraised their opponents by tens of millions of dollars during autumn leading up to the election. Warnock has also reportedly spent 38 times more on Facebook Ads than Loeffler, although the Republicans have spent more on television advertising.
