Ping! It’s Nancy Pelosi. Ping! Now it’s JD Vance. Ping! Now it’s someone running for Congress somewhere who says my contribution in the next five minutes could be the last chance for civilization. Let me think. Ping!
I’ve been getting a lot of text messages from politicians asking for money. Perhaps you have, too.
Alex Quilici of the call-blocking service YouMail told us there may be a billion — yes, billion with a “B” — political text messages sent out each week leading up to the election. Many of them claim to be a personal appeal from a well-known politician.
“Text messages are quite cheap,” explains Professor Michael Kang, who studies campaign finance at Northwestern University Law School. “Even a very low yield from text messaging can be cost effective.”
You might think, “Wait! I never gave Ted Cruz, Elise Stefanik, or Cory Booker my number! Why are they texting me?”
But you probably have given your mobile number to many different companies, for many different reasons. Marketers buy those numbers by the millions. Did you think when they asked you to check an “I agree” box to order that pair of shoes, those cookies they mentioned were Chips Ahoy?