By Angela Loyola ’21 and Sam Feuer ’23
A prior Delta Lab research project on the amount of spending by presidential candidates Joseph Biden and Donald Trump on Spanish language Facebook ads found that while Trump was leading in spending until a few weeks before the election, Biden’s spending skyrocketed as the election neared, eventually surpassing Trump’s lead. As Hispanic voters were recognized to be a crucial voting bloc in the 2020 presidential election, especially in swing states, we wanted to continue researching the sorts of appeals that advertisers were using to target this community. How did Spanish language spending by the two candidates compare to other sponsors? What type of ads were run, and where were Spanish ads targeted?