Harris Ads Blur Line Between Campaign and News Content

Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign is misrepresenting the content of news articles in Google search results as part of a new advertising effort, falsely implying the news outlets have issued direct advocacy for her candidacy, an AllSides investigation found.

Some of the Google ads display pro-Harris slogans while linking to articles mostly from news sources AllSides rates as Lean Left, such as AP, PBS, and CNN and some Center-rated sources such as Reuters.

In many cases, the original headlines and summaries appearing in the Google search results have been altered to appear more supportive of Harris than they actually are. And in some cases, the ad doesn't denote who the sponsor was.

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The campaign spent roughly $750,000 placing text-based ads in Google in August, according to Google Ads Transparency Center data; this number includes news outlet ads and campaign website ads. It targeted swing states such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Michigan.

For example, when an AllSides team member searched for “Kamala Harris history,” the first result was a PBS news article with the label “Paid for by Harris for President.” It appeared to have a strong pro-Harris slant, with preview text saying Harris has “excelled” in her political career.

That text, however, was nowhere to be found in the linked PBS article. It appears to have been re-written by the Harris campaign to give the impression that PBS is outright supporting her.

In a search for “Kamala Harris middle class,” the top result was again paid for by the Harris campaign, but displayed what appeared to be an Associated Press article with a headline praising her for “building up the middle class,” and an apparent subheadline stating, “A future where every person has the opportunity not just to get by but to get ahead. We won’t go back to the failed trickle-down policies that hurt working families.”

The actual article doesn’t say that, though. The actual headline reads, “Harris freshens up her message on the economy as Trump and Republicans go after her on inflation.” The subheading text is also nowhere to be found in the actual AP article.

In another example, when searching for “donald trump patriot,” an ad from the Harris campaign altered the headline and preview text of an article from The Independent (Lean Left) to criticize former President Donald Trump. The Harris campaign chose the headline “Trump Defends Jan 6 Comments | VP Harris Protects Democracy.”

However, the actual Independent headline reads, “Kamala Harris warns of ‘all-out attack’ on voting rights by Trump and Republicans.”

In at least one case, an ad using an article from The Guardian (Lean Left) didn't note who the sponsor was, further enabling confusion:

AllSides found other examples of the Harris campaign promoting content from the following news sources:

Why It Matters

The Harris campaign is placing Google Ads with links to real news articles, but the text of the ads is written by the campaign, not the news outlet itself. The ads create the false impression that the ad text is attributable to the media outlets, not the campaign, and that the outlets explicitly support Harris.

In addition, some ads also gave the impression that certain media outlets were explicitly warning voters about Trump.

AllSides is concerned the ads are spreading misinformation and create the impression of bias on the part of the media outlets. More broadly, this tactic could be abused by other parties to spread mis- and disinformation.

We recommend that the Harris campaign stop running ads that link directly to news articles and misrepresenting news article content. Furthermore, we call on Google to scrutinize this tactic for potential abuse. Facebook has restricted the ability of third party advertisers to feature content from major news outlets for this very reason. We urge Google to consider implementing a similar policy.

A 2023 AllSides analysis found 63% of news articles displayed on Google News are from media outlets on the left. This was a larger share than in 2022. In the days leading up to the 2022 midterm elections, AllSides found the search term “election” returned no Google News results from Center-, Lean Right- or Right-rated media outlets. AllSides rates Google News (not Google search) Lean Left overall.

The slant of Google News, coupled with political candidates’ ability to manipulate news content to make it appear favorable to them in Google search, represents a major bias issue.

Political influence tactics are always evolving, and campaigns have long tried to use media coverage to their advantage. But beguiling voters with fake endorsements from major news sources in search results seems to be a novel strategy, and comes with repercussions for media literacy.

Users of Google search must keep a sharp eye out for the easy-to-miss “Sponsored” label in search results to avoid being misled.

How We Did This

An AllSides team member first noticed the misleading ads while she was logged into her company Google account and in Pennsylvania, where a large portion of the Harris campaign’s recent Google ad spending occurred. The ads continued to appear even when the team member logged out of her company account.

Search queries that returned the sponsored content included: