Brad Parscale

In 2011, Giles-Parscale was brought into the Trump Organization, with Parscale being considered by the organization to be a "digital guru",[17] to provide website design and development—and digital media strategy—for Trump International Realty.[1][18] Parscale continued his business relationship with the Trump Organization, providing digital media services to Trump Winery and the Eric Trump Foundation.[19] In early 2015, Giles-Parscale was hired to create a website for Donald Trump's exploratory campaign, charging $1,500 for the site.[20] Through the entire election cycle, Giles-Parscale was paid $94 million by the Trump campaign.[21] In 2016 Parscale was named the campaign's digital director.[17]

Parscale used social media advertisements with an experiment based strategy of different face expressions, font colors and slogans like "Basket of Deplorables."[22] Parscale's specific roles included heading the oversight of the digital advertising, TV advertising, small dollar fundraising, direct mail, political and advertising budget, and was also the RNC liaison working daily with Katie Walsh who was then the Republican National Committee's chief of staff. He was also the head of the data science and research, which included polling. Parscale claims that after realizing Virginia and Ohio were unable to be swayed, he decided to re-allocate the campaign resources to Michigan and Wisconsin. This shift included the decision to send Trump to Michigan and Wisconsin and focus efforts heavily on the two states. This decision was instrumental in winning the election as Trump won both the historically democratic states.

Parscale used employees from Facebook, Twitter, Google, and other platforms heavily for the campaign advertisements and embedded them on his staff to navigate the Facebook, Twitter, and Google platforms so that his staff would utilize all of these platform's capabilities.[23][24] He denied having any assistance linked to Russia.[23][24] Parscale did not have data scientists or any digital team during the Republican Primary and did much of the social media advertising from his home.[25]

Parscale was able to utilize Facebook advertising to directly target individual voters in swing states.[25] Parscale later said that he was able to target specific universes (audiences) who cared about infrastructure and promoted Trump and his message to build back up the crumbling American infrastructure. Although he hired Cambridge Analytica to assist with microtargeting and Cambridge Analytica stated that it was the key to Trump's victory, Parscale denied that he gained assistance from the firm because he thinks that Cambridge Analytica's use of psychographics doesn't work.[24] Parscale also said, "I understood early that Facebook was how Donald Trump was going to win. Twitter is how he talked to the people. Facebook was going to be how he won."[23]

The Trump campaign initially had solely Donald Trump's personal funding to back his campaign. Parscale set up a major grassroots campaign on Facebook that brought in funding quickly from across the U.S.[26] Parscale attributed the success of his vast social media presence to using the assistance offered by companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Google. He said that because the Trump campaign intended to spend $100 million on social media, companies in that area were prepared to assist the campaign in using that money effectively.[26] The Washington Post later wrote that, in light of Trump's narrow electoral margin, Parscale could "justifiably take credit" for his victory.[27]

Parscale speaking at an event (the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit) in December 2018

The database of voter information that drove Parscale's social media advertising campaigns in the 2016 election was dubbed "Project Alamo", a name which eventually encompassed all of the associated fundraising and political advertising efforts.[28]

On February 27, 2018, President Trump named Parscale his 2020 re-election campaign manager.[29]

On March 2, 2018, Parscale founded "firewall company" Red State Data and Digital to allow working with the America First super PAC during the midterm elections, which Parscale claims does not violate election rules that prohibit coordination between a campaign and a super PAC. Red State received more than $900,000 in business from America First Action.[30][31]

On August 30, 2019, CNN reported that a pro-Trump super PAC paid thousands to a company owned by Parscale's wife.[32]

In March 2020, The New York Times reported that Pascale was paying $15,000 a month to Lara Trump and Kimberly Guilfoyle, the wife and girlfriend of Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., respectively, for campaign work.[33]

On April 29, 2020, CNN reported that President Trump was angry with Parscale about low poll numbers.[34]

In June 2020, while working to get supporters to an upcoming campaign rally with President Trump in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Parscale reported that he had received over 800,000 requests for tickets to the event, according to the Washington Times.[35] Despite this claim, many seats remained empty at the 19,000-seat arena.[36] The Tulsa fire marshal estimated that fewer than 6,200 attended.[37]