How digital ads shaped the primary elections in Texas

The 2024 primary election was an unusually active cycle for the Republican Party. A group of candidates endorsed by Governor Greg Abbott challenged 14 incumbent legislators who were targeted by the Governor to secure enough votes to pass private school voucher legislation during the 2025 Legislative Session. In the end, seven of Governor Abbott's challengers prevailed, five will go to a runoff in May, and two lost.

D|A wanted to take a closer look at the digital strategies and tactics used by the campaigns, so we turned to the Facebook Ad Library, which offers transparent reporting on a campaign’s messaging, ad spend, and targeting. While not every campaign advertised on Facebook or Instagram, Meta advertising was used by 12 out of the 14 races. The following data reflects the campaigns’ ad spend for the 90-day period from December 12 – March 10.

Note: Four incumbents were not seeking reelection: John Raney, Four Price, Kyle Kacal, and Ed Thompson and therefore not running ads.

The above data only indicates which candidates prioritized Facebook and Instagram, but does not factor in ads being run by third-party groups nor does it represent a comprehensive view of digital campaign tools used by the candidates’ campaigns, it does indicate which candidates prioritized Facebook and Instagram. Unfortunately, no tool currently exists that can track whether campaigns ran ads on display or streaming networks. So, while Meta ad spend data provides important insights into the budget and sophistication of a campaign, it doesn’t provide the whole picture. 

OF INTEREST…

• Incumbents outspent challengers by $71,680…and still struggled. In total, campaigns for the 12 House seats spent just under $300k on Meta ads, with incumbents outspending challengers, which is particularly interesting since four incumbents had announced they were retiring and did not advertise at all. It is also remarkable since incumbents generally have an advantage, but in this care were clearly on the defense.

• One of the top spenders was Caroline Fairly, whose incumbent challenger had already announced retirement. Fairly ended up winning against Price’s other three challengers with 59.9% of the votes.

• Incumbent Drew Darby’s digital efforts appeared to pay off in his battle against Stormy Bradley. Darby outspent Bradley on Meta almost 10:1.

• Meta spend by Helen Kerwin and DeWayne Burns was neck-and-neck (both spent around $32,000). Kerwin and Burns are heading to a runoff in May and you know we’ll be watching their digital strategy throughout the spring!

Voters may not have known that the true root of the intense political battles among the GOP was school vouchers. To the extent the topic of ‘education’ was even raised, it was incumbent candidates showcasing their own records supporting public schools. Governor Abbott’s school voucher candidates used vague language like “parent empowerment” and talked about other issues, like immigration and the border.

Example Ads from Incumbents:

Example Ads from Challengers:

Meta’s Ad Library also provides detailed information on how the ad campaigns were set up and where they were delivered. For example, Caroline Fairly ran a total of 68 different ads spread across various geographies in House District 87. 

After digging a bit deeper, we can see that the Fairly campaign used a sophisticated approach of Custom Lists plus Interest Targeting to deliver ads to individuals who have shown an interest in topics such as Joe Rogan, the Dallas Cowboys, Fox News, agriculture, petroleum, and others.

The platform allows users to dig down to the ad level and see how each ad performed with details on budget, impressions, and demographics of the audience that was shown the ad. Here’s an example of the type of results we can see for the following video ad.

We expect more ad budget to be allocated to digital media during the runoff races and will be watching them closely. While Meta ads are often used by campaigns, they are also used frequently by advocacy groups and third-party organizations. Need a hand setting up an ad campaign? The Digital Advance team would love to talk! We offer hands-on training as well as full-service management.