Skip to main content

The man behind Trump’s Facebook campaign strategy will run his 2020 campaign

The man behind Trump’s Facebook campaign strategy will run his 2020 campaign

Share this story

President-Elect Donald Trump Holds Meetings At Trump Tower
Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

President Trump plans to name Brad Parscale, the digital director of his 2016 campaign, to run his re-election bid, according to the Drudge Report. The Associated Press has since corroborated the report.

“Facebook and Twitter were the reason we won this thing.”

Parscale, who started off the campaign by building its website, became known for commanding an ambitious data project, as laid out in a Businessweek profile from the time. He was also known for his use of social media during the campaign. Businessweek described him as one of the few people trusted with ghost-writing Trump’s tweets.

The campaign’s — and Parscale’s — Facebook strategy has drawn particular scrutiny. As The Verge has reported, Facebook’s system rewards more polarizing ads — a boon to the Trump campaign, which ended up paying a better rate for ads compared to the Clinton campaign. “Facebook and Twitter were the reason we won this thing,” Parscale told Wired just after the election. “Twitter for Mr. Trump. And Facebook for fundraising.”

This week, Parscale again popped up in the news. After Wired published an article further detailing Facebook’s ad economics, Parscale endorsed the piece on Twitter. In a follow-up, he estimated the Trump campaign was paying far less than Clinton for ads, although a Facebook executive disputed how large the difference was. “This is why @realDonaldTrump was a perfect candidate for FaceBook,” Parscale wrote. The decision to let him run the campaign likely means Trump believes that, too.