“Two leading Republican Senate hopefuls in Pennsylvania are savaging each other in TV ads over who supported transgender surgery more. In Missouri, another GOP candidate for Senate surged when she criticized transgender swimmer Lia Thomas in a commercial. And in Alabama, a charter school for transgender kids has been invoked in ads as an issue in the Republican primary for governor,” NBC News reports.

“Like never before, Republicans in primaries across the country have made attacking transgender rights central to their paid media campaigns and stump speeches — focusing on issues of education, gender transitioning and sports.”

Louisiana U.S. Senate candidate Gary Chambers (D), whose opening campaign video of him smoking a marijuana joint went viral, released another provocative ad in which he burns the Confederate flag, the Lafayette Daily Advertiser reports.

Said Chambers, as he lights the flag on fire: “It’s time to burn what remains of the Confederacy down.”

Arizona U.S. Senate candidate Jim Lamon (R) invoked the anti-Biden phrase “let’s go Brandon” in a campaign ad released on Monday, The Hill reports.

Said Lamon, in the new ad: “Let’s take the fight to Joe Biden and show him We The People put America first. The time is now. Let’s go, Brandon. Are you with me?” 

“Political advertisers on Facebook are supposed to identify themselves as such. That way, Facebook can log their ads in an archive and, as was the company’s policy in 2020, even prevent those ads from running close to an election,” Protocol reports.

“Of course, both accidentally and intentionally, not every political advertiser plays by Facebook’s rules, meaning Facebook often has to decide what is and isn’t a political ad even after the ad runs.”

A new study of 189,000 political ads from 2020 found that Facebook misidentified a whopping 83% of those ads.

“Campaign committees for Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) have paid nearly $15,000 to bloggers for posting hundreds of flattering articles dating to his first run for Congress in 2016,” The City reports.

“The bloggers’ posts do not disclose their financial ties with the Espaillat campaign — exploiting a legal gray area as paid social media influencers play a growing role in campaigns nationally.”

Kari Lake (R), Donald Trump’s pick for Arizona governor, released a debut campaign ad focused on her wanting to “take a sledgehammer” to the media.

The Daily Beast reports that 18.4 million Facebook users have viewed ads promoting an unproven process to “reverse” abortion.

New York Times: “The single biggest advertiser in Facebook’s political advertising database in recent months is not President Biden, the Democratic or Republican parties or even any of the hundreds of candidates angling for advantage in the 2022 midterms. Instead, it is an obscure mortgage-related firm, Lower My Bills, which in an earlier internet era was best known for its omnipresent — if ostentatious — banner ads featuring dogs in goggles, dancing cowboys and strange green aliens that had little to do with interest rates.”

“Now, the firm is spending millions of dollars on ads featuring headlines like ‘Biden is on a roll’ as it pursues clicks it can convert into new customers. Some of the ads feature an animated likeness of Mr. Biden in a suit; others have the president in flip-flops and a Hawaiian shirt while hula hooping on the beach.”

“Over the past 90 days, Lower My Bills has spent more than $10 million … After being contacted by The New York Times, Lower My Bills began running at least two new Trump-related ads this week on Facebook.”