Hello and welcome to another edition of Doomscroll, your favorite newsletter covering all things digital on the right. To everyone who was at C&E’s digital summit this week: I hope you got me some cool swag. Gonna be checkin’ mah mailbox this week. Never said I was above gifts and bribes.
P.S. Happy Father’s Day to all the dads reading this!
One Question
Thanks to everyone who answered last week’s One Question about what you would do with $1 million. Frankly, I was a little underwhelmed with the responses. No shade, just real talk. But here’s one interesting idea:
Pull a play out of Elon's book - tell everyone to willingly give me their data for the chance to win $1 million. It's amazing how much information people willingly give by dangling a chance to win money in front of them.
It…might just work?
Anywho, moving on. This week’s One Question is about texting. Most of you have probably heard by now about Apple’s announcement for iOS 26. The update will allow customers to screen texts from unknown numbers. Here’s a little more:
The Messages app will automatically flag texts from unfamiliar numbers in a separate folder under Unknown Senders. From there, you can mark a phone number as known, get more info, or delete it; messages from these Unknown Senders will be silenced until a user accepts them.
I don’t see how this DOESN’T have huge implications for political texts. So my question is this: Are you getting worried about the future of political text messaging? Does this announcement make you think P2P’s days may be numbered? Let me know!
One Quote
One Thought
The above quote is from Push Digital’s Phil Vangelakos, and his recent thread on X about them becoming the “first AI-native political firm.” I generally agree with the sentiment in the above quote; campaigns who don’t evolve and adopt new tech are going to be left in the dust. That’s just a fact. But will they be forged in code? That’s quite a bold statement. While I hear time and again that 2026 will be the AI election, we’ll see what comes out of this rush to put everything in the hands of the AI gods. Best of luck to our friends at Push!
Who’s Doing What
—Congrats, Jack!
Jack Ciattarelli won the GOP gubernatorial primary in New Jersey this week. Congrats to him and his team! What’s even more interesting? According to AdImpact, this was the most expensive election in state history. Here’s more:
A crowded Democratic and Republican primary to replace New Jersey’s term-limited Governor Phil Murphy has shattered ad spending records in the Garden State. With over $85M in ad spending and reservations, New Jersey’s gubernatorial primary is the most expensive election on record in state history.
…
On the Republican side, Trump-endorsed Former State Representative Jack Ciattarelli leads in ad support, with $5.9M supporting his candidacy. Republican group Kitchen Table Conservatives spent $1.1M opposing Bill Spadea.
Outside groups have played a significant role throughout the primary. Twelve different groups have supported or opposed nine candidates, collectively accounting for 54% of all ad spending.
Ok - Another thing I found interesting? Before he even officially won the primary, Ciattarelli was running ads against Mikie Sherrill, the eventual Democratic nominee. And the ads are…devastating. I had no idea that Sherrill made $7 million in stock trades and tripled her net worth as a member of Congress, but I SURE AS HECK DO NOW. The accompanying microsite - mikiemademillions.com - ain’t bad, either! What’s even better is that Team Ciattarelli didn’t have to do much of the legwork at all to put these together. The ads are videos of podcast interview in which she’s asked point blank about the stock trades and fumbles all over her answer. I haven’t seen the whole interview so I have no idea what led to this line of questioning, but the fact that Sherrill didn’t have a response ready is insane. Nice week, Team Ciattarelli!
—About those DOGE checks…
First things first: Last week I slammed the DOGE checks fundraising concept, then asked if any of you were brave enough to step forward to defend the tactic. Well…one of you was! I shall keep this person anonymous, but suffice to say I appreciate their willingness to own the decision to cash in on the DOGE check messaging. Here’s what this person said:
We're running the DOGE check to great success for many of our clients. Everybody seems to be running a variant of it regardless, and I actually think it's a GOOD thing. Let me explain.
It's way more tangible of a concept than the decades-long REAL scams run by this industry. Activate your 10,000% match now! THIS IS A TEST I'm running for three months because somehow that can only be confirmed with a donation! Confirm your voter registration...with a donation! Payments are incomplete! We need xxx signatures from your area or.....something might happen I guess? The President endorsed the idea, leading Republicans have endorsed the idea, and it strikes at what our donors really care about: cutting waste for their children, grandchildren's future. It's not like we've all pulled the exact 5k amount from our asses either---it's something they've specifically cited as the kind of savings these expected cuts might bring about. For the first time in a very long time we have donors motivated to give toward a policy-related issue, albeit one that isn't at the top of Washington's list of priorities. That being said, who knows what the future holds. We have 3 and a half years left and, at least to me, cutting waste and giving the taxpayers money seems like a very popular agenda item. There's actually a shot at this impact being felt by the donors as opposed to the latest 10,000% match.
Agree with it or not, I think we can all follow this logic. Is it the worst tactic? Maybe not. Is it *good*? Eh, maybe not. Still, it sure does seem to work, and I can understand not wanting to ditch something merely on principle when donors’ desire to give seems to be at an all-time low.
Ok, one last thought before I shut up on this topic for now: Maybe it’s because as a consultant I don’t JUST focus on fundraising…but it seems to me that our goal should be to win elections. Money doesn’t, by itself, win elections. Therefore, fundraising is just one means to an end, which doesn’t justify scam-y tactics. It doesn’t matter if you raised a gazillion dollars if your candidate ultimately loses on Election Day 🙁
—The King of Ads
Shout-out to John King for his slick new ad. It’s definitely a far cry from the selfie launch video he posted a few weeks ago! (Which if you remember: I didn’t hate!) But honestly ya’ll - this is a great ad and brings to mind a good tip I should remember more often: If you can’t get a new script approved or record the candidate speaking directly to camera, take advantage of the stump speech! In this ad, we get King narrating the whole thing which is awesome, but it’s clearly from a speech he’s delivering at some kind of event. At least, that’s what it looks like. Smart. Anyway: Film those stump speeches! Even if the video ain’t great, you can always utilize the audio.
—I said send in the troops!
Also, this Trump email is lit. Absolutely zero notes.
Who’s Spending Where
Industry Watch
🤳 Edits is getting an in-app teleprompter. NICE.
📹 YouTube appears to be loosening its content moderation rules.
📒 Sprout Social has released a 2025 report on the state of social media. It’s worth a read. Here’s one nice tidbit that gives me reason to hope we’re not all lost:
Our research shows that consumers perceive “bold” brands to be honest and inspirational—more so than trendy, funny or unfiltered.
2025-2026 Watch
Ric Grenell is still mulling a bid for governor of California.
Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears is getting outraised by her Democrat opponent - by a lot. Blah.
Don Brown is primarying Sen. Thom Tillis in North Carolina.
Mo Brooks might run for Senate in Alabama.
MTG might run for governor in Georgia.
Derek Dooley might run for Senate in Georgia.
Sheriff Mark Lamb might run for Congress in AZ-05.
The Grapevine
Punchbowl put together a list of House members spending tax dollars on ads. See it here.
Kate Holliday from Powers Interactive posted a thoughtful take on LinkedIn about emerging ad trends this year. Check it out here.
I think Eric Wilson is right here.
Got a tip for The Grapevine? Job announcement? Job opening? Email ‘em to me at itsthedoomscroll@gmail.com
Last But Not Least
From the other side of the aisle:
Getting rid of David Hogg wasn’t the only interesting thing that happened at the DNC this week. Our friends on the official left launched a daily, live YouTube show called the “Daily Blueprint.” And yes, I watched several of the episodes so you don’t have to! I have some thoughts on this. First, credit where it’s due: Content! I’m a content lover at heart so I applaud the effort to do something like this on a daily basis. They’re even using custom thumbnails, for crying out loud!
That said…I think this series marks a significant “vibe” shift for the Democrats that we should all be aware of. Did they learn their lessons from Brat Summer? It looks like maybe they have. This show is serious (ok, serious-adjacent, but still). It’s not hosted by a Gen Z, wannabe TikTok star. It doesn’t look like the goal is to chase virality. It’s not a couple of friends trading snarky banter. In fact, it looks very much like the show is trying to mimic the 6 o’clock news. At first, I was 100% ready to poo poo this for being boring and dry, but the more I think about it…the more I think this was a pretty smart move. The DNC needs to show Democrats are a party of serious people (lol, ok) and the inmates aren’t actually running the asylum. I don’t know. Maybe I’m overthinking this, but…ok.
From the other side of the tracks:
I love this campaign from Heinz. My opinion? Ketchup belongs nowhere near eggs. :D
Before you go…
Did you answer this week’s One Question? It takes five seconds!
Access the Doomscroll archive here.
Consider forwarding Doomscroll to your friends!
Thanks for including my X post on AI!