In the past few months, a left-leaning organization has poured over $9 million into Facebook ads supporting Vice President Kamala Harris and opposing former President Donald Trump. These ads have reached a targeted audience in swing states through Facebook’s feature allowing advertisers to use their own data lists, which political groups often curate to focus their messaging on specific voters.
This approach is standard for campaigns and political action committees (PACs). However, the organization spending the $9 million on these digital ads is neither a campaign nor a PAC in any official sense. Instead, it’s Courier Newsroom, founded by Democratic strategist Tara McGowan, which promotes Democratic viewpoints through its network of “local” news sites.
Courier’s Facebook ad spending shows how critical McGowan’s media initiative has become for Democrats in digital outreach. Since August, Courier has invested $9 million in Facebook ads, which is significant for digital advertising even though it doesn’t match the larger budgets for TV ads. For instance, Future Forward, a prominent PAC backing Harris, reserved $332 million for TV airtime by mid-September. Courier’s spending has outpaced Future Forward’s digital ad budget, which was $4.8 million over the same timeframe.
Courier benefits from branding itself as a news source. Unlike Future Forward, whose ads carry a “paid for by FF PAC” disclaimer and link to publicly accessible donation records, Courier’s ads run through its network of “local news” Facebook pages labeled as “Media/news company.” This label makes the pages appear as impartial news outlets, avoiding Federal Election Commission (FEC) disclosure rules on donor transparency. For example, Courier’s Pennsylvania page, The Keystone, presents itself with imagery and language evoking local pride, with no indication of political affiliation.
Critics argue Courier is anything but neutral, calling its content “political advertising” with an appearance of legitimate news. Outlets like CNN and the Center for Responsive Politics have accused Courier of spreading “fake news,” with CNN anchors like Jake Tapper and Brian Stelter calling Courier “pink slime”—a term for content that looks like news but is actually partisan.
From August 3 to October 31, Courier has concentrated its Facebook ad dollars—$9.2 million—on five key swing states: Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and North Carolina. Recently, the organization also increased spending in Nevada, dedicating nearly $300,000 there in one week.
Many of these ads cover issues like abortion and birth control access. In North Carolina, for instance, an ad accuses Trump of “raising the alarming prospect of restricting birth control access” and indicates he might support giving states authority to regulate contraceptives. The ad refers to a May 21 article on Trump’s comments during a local interview, though he later clarified that he did not support limiting birth control. When Harris later referenced these comments, Newsweek flagged her statement as needing more context, which Courier’s ad and article do not provide.
Despite spending only around $200 on this ad, it has generated between 4,000 and 5,000 impressions, with most views from North Carolina women aged 25-44. Instead of targeting by demographics like gender, Courier uses custom audience lists, uploading names, emails, and phone numbers to Facebook to match with users. This process enables Courier to place specific messages in front of select audiences. For example, ads about abortion reach young women, while an ad targeting Trump on tariffs focuses on men aged 35-44.
Courier did not respond to requests for comment on how it compiles its custom audience lists. While theoretically possible to build these lists from public voter records, some consultants argue this could violate Facebook’s policies.
This targeted approach allows Courier to get messages in front of highly specific audiences. According to a Republican strategist who reviewed Courier’s spending, their techniques are standard for a well-funded political campaign. The distinction, they said, is that Courier creates the impression of being an unbiased news source while concealing donor identities.
McGowan, who founded Courier in 2019, initially positioned it under ACRONYM, a dark money group she ran with funding from billionaires Reid Hoffman and George Soros. In 2020, ACRONYM divested, and Courier now operates under Good Information Inc., another McGowan-led group also backed by Hoffman and Soros.
Courier’s state-specific outlets aim to appear local and neutral, though the organization is unapologetically partisan. Earlier this year, Courier hired Nina Burleigh, a former Time White House reporter who once infamously remarked that she would offer former President Bill Clinton a sexual favor “to thank him for keeping abortion legal.”
