The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) in an internal memo last week warned that Apple’s latest update for mobile devices may rob the Republican Party in $500 million in lost revenue and depress get-out-the-vote efforts, which some say amounts to “big tech censorship.”
The NRSC stated that Apple’s iOS 26 update “introduces aggressive message filtering” and that political texts from “verified and compliant senders” will be “treated as spam by default.”
The NRSC stated in its memo:
It’s important to understand: Apple isn’t just targeting cold outreach or spammy actors. Every political message — shortcode, long code, doesn’t matter — gets pushed into the dark. The only workaround — getting a voter to reply — is increasingly rare and entirely at the mercy of Apple’s unclear rules. How will a voter reply if they never get the message?
The memo said that the NRSC alone could lose over $25 million in revenue, and given that 70 percent of small-dollar donations are done by text, and iPhone makes up 60 percent of mobile devices, the GOP could lose $500 million revenue.
However the NRSC stated, “”But this isn’t just about money — it’s also about the impact on voter contact. GOTV messages, voter persuasion texts, rapid-response messaging, election day reminders — these are time-sensitive, critical communications. iOS 26 breaks all of that.”
“Unilaterally blocking campaigns and political parties from being able to contact voters with get-out-the-vote or persuasive messaging is voter disenfranchisement and it’s critical Apple delay their rollout of this feature until these concerns have been addressed,” Joanna Rodridguez, the communications director for the NRSC, said in a written statement.
Others outside of the NRSC said that this could depress poll and get-out-the-vote messaging.
Ryan Girdusky, a political consultant who runs the 1776 Project PAC and the popular National Populist Substack, wrote, “This isn’t only going to devastate political fundraising, it’s going to hurt GOTV and polling. Now that almost everyone has switched to cell phones, pollsters increasingly rely on texting. Really big problem.”
Nathan Leamer, a political consultant for the Fixed Gear Strategies, told Breitbart News in an interview, “I am concerned that one company is acting as the ultimate gatekeeper about who can access information and who doesn’t, and specifically how they are leveraging that power, superseding the ability of CTIA or the carriers or other intermediaries to say we think it should be done this specific way, and how it’s going to have a downstream negative impact on this free flow of communication of information.”
Leamer noted that political texts from groups such as the NRSC could update citizens on events for civic engagements, such as a parade or a town hall with their local congressman.
The political consultant has for years raised concerns over Google’s alleged censorship by sending messages from political groups to spam folders.
Senate Republicans have called on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate the alleged tech censorship.
Leamer added, “I think Apple is fixing this in an overzealous way that could actually have downstream effects on the ability of the freedom to communicate.”
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on X @SeanMoran3.
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