Tough Breaks
Doomscroll 5.24.2026
Hello and welcome back to another edition of Doomscroll, your favorite newsletter covering all things digital on the right. With me, your host, as always. Let’s get to some scrolling.
P.S. While I hope everyone is enjoying their long weekend, I do want to take a moment to remember those who lost their lives so that we can be free. That sacrifice. It’s why we do what we do.
Thank you to everyone who answered last week’s One Question about Republican fundraising ads. I think the question was something along the lines of “what’s the dealio, yo?” Anyway, many of you had thoughts. Here are some of them:
Hasn’t this been explained a bunch? ROI. If you cannot inbox then you must make money on the first donation which is very hard to do and a lot of work. Much easier and lower risk to just run guaranteed rev share
We’re not doing it right. Most people are just resorting to scam texting now for a quick buck and ruining the GOP fundraising ecosystem.
Dems have so deeply ingrained into their messaging that sending low dollar donations will help them “save democracy” that they are able to completely blur the line between fundraising asks and making typical political advertisements. Also this seems to be more so the trend that has emerged that Republicans are better at high dollar fundraising and Dems excel at the low dollar side.
It starts and ends with Trump. Trump is the king maker. Trump is the fundraiser. Why fundraise when you can write your own checks, Trump knights you and you can win.
I don’t want to cry censorship but I have an ad account I have been fundraising from for 6+ months now. No matter what I do, I cant reach more than 700k users a month. I’ll get a frequency of 7-8x. We spent over 100k a month on FB and consistently hit 1.8-2.2x ROAS (nothing to complain about) HOWEVER I cant help but to think we are leaving money on the table as we are hitting the same 700k people 7 to 8 times instead of 2.5M people 2 times. It’s not an audience or set up issue. I have had our Facebook reps look into it and they have reassured me nothing is wrong.
Why I think our ad account is ‘flagged’ or getting reduced reach: I have tested several custom audiences from donation files optimizing for purchase conversions in 2 different ad accounts. The ad account in question, and another one. Both campaigns set up the exact same way to the exact same audience. The ad account in question will spend more on the SAME audience, will reach LESS people, with HIGHER CPMs. When I analyzed the last few months and compared the 2 ad accounts, the ‘good’ one has hit 150% more unique users wile spending 80% less money each month. It’s like the reach is getting throttled and I am unable to hit our audiences in the ‘throttled’ ad account which has much more impactful ads and many more donations raised.
First off: Thank you to whoever blamed inboxing. Not to be hyperbolic or anything, but I literally don’t think I would be able to get through my week if someone didn’t reply to a question by blaming inboxing. It’s like oxygen to me at this point.
Second, that Facebook ad account conspiracy comment is muy interesante. I want to know more! HMU if you don’t mind not being anonymous anymore: itsthedoomscroll@gmail.com
Also, someone left a fun - and long - comment about Republican fundraising ads but said it was “OFF THE RECORD” and being the good non-journo that I am, I decided to honor the request. Although it pains me. But suffice to say, the general gist was: We don’t run fundraising ads because we don’t know WTF we’re doing. Harsh! But..harsh but fair? WILL WE EVER KNOW. Blink twice if I’m allowed to print the comment next week!
This week’s One Question is along the same lines. Sort of. Conventional wisdom in our biz for years now has been that building and maintaining a solid house email list is job number one of any digital team worth its salt. A digital director’s job - on day one - is to convince the campaign to invest in list-building. Day. One. You can’t rely on platforms where you don’t own your audience…You can’t fundraise effectively if you don’t have a good house file…etc etc. I generally think that advice is still true, but does everyone else? If inboxing is SUCH a problem, should we even care about building email lists anymore? At a basic, tactical level, where are we on this?
Alright, let’s talk about this. Briefly. So several people flagged Rob Flaherty’ post on the DNC autopsy for me a week ago, and I resisted writing about it because A) I is tired of Rob and B) Doomscroll isn’t about the left’s digital game. It’s about the right’s and I try really hard not to “chase” what the other side is doing or struggling with. But with the drama of the autopsy release this week, I think it’s time to talk about it just for a moment. The above quote is one that’s made the rounds all over the interwebs, so I’m sure you’ve all seen it by now. It’s from DNC Chair Ken Martin, who’s trying to make it absolutely, positively clear that the buck does NOT stop with him. Real profile in courage, that guy. Anyway, what, if anything, should we take away from this as digital strategists? Who the heck knows. Yes, I skimmed the autopsy. No, I don’t have strong feelings about it. It says a lot of things about digital that we already know. And a lot of things about the left that we already know. So maybe the biggest takeaway here is simply this: Let’s just let the Dems whine about the “media ecosystem” as much as they want. We’re moving on. Just a thought!
—Tough break for Team Cornyn
I really don’t have a dog in this fight other than really, really not wanting to see James Talarico become a United States Senator. That said, I wasn’t that surprised that President Trump decided to endorse Ken Paxton this week. It tracks, if you know what I’m saying. Team Cornyn’s response - at least part of it, anyway - was to go up on Facebook and YouTube with a direct-to-camera ad with Cornyn talking about how he’s voted with Trump 99% of the time. It even uses clips of Trump saying nice things about Cornyn. Overall, it’s a pretty strong ad. The other thing that jumped out at me, though? (SPEAKING OF FUNDRAISING ADS) It closes with a fundraising ask. Indeed, the whole time it plays there’s a donate QR code in the upper right corner. And it ends - not with Cornyn asking for your vote - but with him asking you to “give today.” Interesting move. Maybe tying fundraising with persuasion is the way to go these days. But I don’t know. With this race specifically, it seems like Cornyn’s more lacking in money than votes…
—Am I bad at math?
I don’t know who or what runs the 2026 Victory Committee, but they’re sending out fundraising emails promising a 50x impact as part of what they’re calling Operation Red Strike. I hate the tactic, but I have to say: the WinRed page is kind of cool. I’m not against weird strobe light things running up and down a form! However, the math has me scratching my head a little. Is it really a 50x impact if the impact widget thing isn’t calculating it correctly? Maybe don’t answer that. Maybe I’m just bad at math. Also, is the 2026 Victory Committee’s Operation Red Strike different than the Operation Red Strike emails I keep getting from Rep. Hudson and the NRCC? Is one of them ripping off the other? Or is this just the lame mess I think it is. We’ll never know.
—Start your engines!
I have to say - I’m loving all the AI/animated ads we’re seeing this cycle. This one, from Mike Rogers, is good and highly entertaining! Nice.
Welp, Thomas Massie lost his primary. So long, farewell? Tough break.
And…Trump endorsed Ken Paxton. Someone say a prayer for the NRSC.
A new poll shows incumbent South Dakota Governor Larry Rhoden is definitely in some trouble in the gubernatorial primary.
This ad should just run over and over again from now until November.
✏️ For anyone who needs it: A list of some of the best social media marketing tools in 2026
📷 …And for anyone who needs it: A list of 2026 social media image sizes
🖥️ Google is testing two new AI search ads: conversational discovery ads and highlighted answers. Looks interesting.
The Team Collins War Room account got into some hot water on Friday for, what I would call a very “distasteful” tweet. Not great, guys. I know Collins came out and acknowledged and said he had parted ways with the staffer… but there’s a lesson and here and it’s pretty basic: Be careful with who you hire. If your consultant is a jerk in private eventually they’ll be a jerk in public.
Inbox.GOP users can now see how many times a piece of email or SMS copy has been sent across multiple days… This is cool.
So…I guess these 2 aren’t friends?
Congrats to JR Kennelly for launching Capital Strategic Partners
John Hall and Mike Hahn had a great conversation about online fundraising on the Digital Politics podcast. Listen to it here. But do not text John Hall if you like it!
Got a tip for The Grapevine? Job announcement? Job opening? Email ‘em to me at itsthedoomscroll@gmail.com
From the other side of the aisle:
In an effort to get their girl, MN Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan across the finish line in the nasty Minnesota senate primary, the DLGA is out with an ad attacking Rep. Angie Craig for supporting the Laken Riley Act. This has been a huge issue in this race thanks to the ICE drama earlier this year in Minnesota, and Craig has actually already apologized and said she regretted supporting the Act, which let me remind everyone, simply mandates the detention of illegal immigrants who are accused of crimes. WOAH. To me, this is an interesting race to watch for no other reason than it’s emblematic of the fight going on within the Democratic Party right now: will the radical, far-left activist base win the day or can reasoned, moderate Dems have a fighting chance? (Although who are we kidding. Are there really “moderate” Dems anymore if all they do is cave to the far left?).
From the other side of the tracks:
Some of you might think this is dumb…and that’s just fine! But I rather enjoyed this little essay in the New York Times recently about how “whimsy” is making a comeback. Searches for “whimsy” are up 50% on Etsy. Millenialls (hi!) and Gen-Z’ers “have recast the word to characterize a lifestyle that blends playfulness, spontaneity and being present.” Here’s more:
But whimsy enthusiasts see it as a response to compounding anxieties over a series of stressors, including a challenging economy, multiple wars and a volatile presidency. For some, embracing this brand of quirkiness amid the uncertainty offers a sense of control.
“We really can’t control what our leaders are doing,” Plank said, adding, “but you can control what kind of mug you’re going to choose, what cute outfit you’re going wear and what beautiful thing you can do in your morning.”
…
The whimsy craze’s emphasis on offline activities parallels a movement by young people who are leaving behind smartphones and screens.
A-MEN.
I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: if we want to appeal to the youths, let’s stop focusing so much on TikTok and focus more on offline, IRL connection. Maybe you think that job doesn’t belong to the digital team. I say the digital team has long been on the receiving end of the random, “we don’t know where this task falls so let’s give it to digital” dilemma for so long, why stop now?
There’s a guy running for governor in South Carolina who’s sending out literal newspapers to voters. That’s the political campaign equivalent of whimsy. Send cute postcards to your volunteer list. Inject some fun into your yard signs. Be happy. Try it! You might like it!
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