“I have a McGift for you! It’s President Trump. Want to take a look?”
“We’ve asked NINE TIMES if you support Kamala Harris. . . but you never completed the poll.”
Those were just two examples of text messages blasted out by political operatives to voters in the final days of the 2024 presidential campaign—as Democrats and Republicans scrambled for last-minute donations. The frantic calls for action are all too familiar to Americans: a steady stream of outreach to voters that often feels a lot like hyperbolic spam has proliferated ever since the 2008 election.
“Peer-to-peer is a really easy way to quickly reach people in a cheap manner,” Mike Nellis, a former senior adviser to Harris, told The Free Press. “But it’s actually at the expense of spamming people who don’t sign up for anything and aren’t necessarily interested in hearing from you.”
There might be an alternative—and it is already sending shock waves through political operative circles in Washington. In early June, Apple announced a new feature through its forthcoming iOS 26 software that will allow iPhone users to screen messages from “unknown senders.” That will automatically place texts from such senders, starting in mid-September, in a separate folder without notifying the recipients.
Could the new iPhone feature finally be the death knell for those unexpected texts you receive from an assortment of politicians clamoring for your wallet? That appears to be the contention of at least one influential Republican group, according to a leaked memo dated July 24.
