Republican Drew MacEwen definitely likes running Facebook ads. A Navy vet and four-term state representative from Union, Washington, which sits at the southern bend of Hood Canal, MacEwen bought Facebook ads to help his re-election campaigns in 2014, 2016, and 2018.
In all, he’s reported paying the social media giant more than $5,600 to run ads that trumpeted his accomplishments and, during the 2018 campaign in particular, tore down his Democratic opponent for allegedly wanting to “take away your right to bear arms.”
MacEwen won his 2018 race by fewer than 1,600 votes out of more than 65,000 cast in Washington’s 35th legislative district, and in the lead-up to that election he ran 52 different Facebook ads to help him secure a victory.
Those Facebook ads were seen—at a minimum—204,000 times. The entire population of MacEwen’s district is only about 137,000 people, according to the last census.
So it’s not surprising that MacEwen noticed when, shortly after his narrow 2018 win, Facebook announced it would no longer sell political ads targeting local elections in Washington state.
The reason for Facebook’s decision: Washington’s uniquely strong requirements for transparency in ads that influence this state’s voters.
Now MacEwen is hoping to entice Facebook into lifting its political ad ban. To that end, he’s introduced two bills for the coming legislative session that would upend this state’s nation-leading disclosure rules, altering them in ways that would let companies like Facebook take a pass on providing the public with significant details about the financing and reach of the local political ads they sell.
