San Antonio marketing exec Parscale to run Trump’s re-election campaign
San Antonio advertising executive Brad Parscale, the architect of the Trump campaign’s digital operations, will run President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, the organization announced Tuesday.
In a statement, the Trump campaign said Parscale will lead “advanced planning” for the 2020 effort, and that the campaign also will be engaged in the midterm elections.
Parscale’s sophisticated social media targeting was widely credited with helping Trump secure a victory that surprised pundits, pollsters and many Republicans.
He also has drawn scrutiny from at least one investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Parscale testified in October before the House Intelligence Committee as part of the panel’s Russia investigation. Investigators have found that Russia interfered with the election in part by using fake social media accounts to influence Amer-
ican voters.
Parscale said in a statement last summer that he was not aware of any Russian involvement in the campaign’s “digital and data operations,” according to Politico. The campaign used “the exact same digital marketing strategies that are used every day by corporate America,” Parscale said at the time.
“The only collaboration I am aware of in the Trump digital campaign was with staff provided to the campaign by Facebook, Google and Twitter,” Parscale said at the time.
Parscale, a principal in the Giles-Parscale firm in San Antonio, used data to identify 14.4 million persuadable voters in swing states leading up to the election, according to the San Antonio Express-News.
In an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” last year, Parscale described how a team that grew to 100 people created 50,000 to 60,000 ads on Facebook daily to reach different swaths of Trump supporters to maximize support and online donations.
He also oversaw media buys and overall advertising in the 2016 campaign.
Parscale didn’t respond to a request for comment from the American-Statesman.
Parscale previously worked for the Trump Organization and has long been close with the Trump family, a priority for the president as he begins planning his re-election strategy, a person familiar with the campaign planning told The Associated Press.
Starting in 2011, Parscale had done some web design work for the Trump family — including the president’s real estate firm and his son Eric Trump’s charity — before Trump’s son-inlaw and senior adviser Jared Kushner hired him for the campaign.
Parscale also established close ties with Eric Trump and his wife, Lara, who in turn was hired by Parscale’s digital firm.
President Trump has prioritized loyalty in his next campaign after feeling burned by some of his previous campaign staffers, according to multiple people familiar with his thinking. The president has angrily denounced and publicly marginalized Paul Manafort, his former campaign chairman, whom he blames for hurting the president’s reputation with his own entanglements to Russia. Manafort is now facing charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller on money laundering and bank fraud relating to his past work on behalf of the Ukrainian government.
In a statement, Eric Trump said Parscale “has our family’s complete trust and is the perfect person to be at the helm of the campaign.”
Kushner also praised Parscale in a statement. “Brad was essential in bringing a disciplined technology and data-driven approach to how the 2016 campaign was run,” he said, adding that Parscale will “help build a best-inclass campaign.”