Google to Let Political Campaigns Bypass Gmail’s Spam Filters

Google is poised to make it easier for political campaigns and committees to bypass Gmail’s spam filters. 

The tech giant quietly announced the change in a post on its Help Center website on Monday. Under the new policy, any candidate, political party, political action committee or other political entity will be eligible to become “verified senders,” allowing them to deliver “policy-compliant and non-abusive messages” to personal Gmail inboxes.

To comply with Google’s policy, campaigns and committees will have to keep their spam rate below 0.3 percent, the company said. If users mark more than 0.3 percent of their emails as spam across a 14-day period, they’ll be held in violation of the policy.

The program is set to take effect on Sept. 8, just one day before the Republican National Committee kicks off an unusual midterm-year convention in Dallas. 

The deliverability of political emails – particularly fundraising appeals – to Gmail inboxes has long been a sore spot for Republicans, in particular, who have accused the email service’s spam filters of unfairly blocking messages from conservative campaigns and committees from users’ primary inboxes.

Those complaints were at the center of a lawsuit filed by the Republican National Committee in 2022 that accused Google of “throttling its email messages because of the RNC’s political affiliation and views. 

Around the same time, Google tested a program that exempted emails from political campaigns from spam filters, but ultimately let that program sunset in early 2023. Google denied the RNC’s claims and the Federal Election Commission also dismissed a complaint filed by the RNC and two other Republican committees that Google had effectively aided Democrats by filtering out GOP fundraising emails at a higher rate.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Google cast the new verified sender policy as a way to ensure the deliverability of political communications while sparing Gmail users from unwanted spam. 

“Following our previous pilot, this program is designed to connect people with the emails they want to receive while keeping them fully in control of their inboxes,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement. “To participate, bulk senders must meet strict security and compliance requirements, ensuring that messages people receive are relevant, useful, and verified.”

Verified senders must be registered with the FEC or a state or local election authority in order to participate in the program, the spokesperson said. And senders can only use one verified email address per campaign domain. To participate, senders will have to undergo identity and background checks, which will be conducted by Campaign Verify, a nonprofit broker.

Mike Hahn, the president of digital at Republican fundraising firm Frontline Strategies, called the new policy a “welcomed and long overdue” change. 

“Republicans have faced censorship from Big Tech for the better part of a decade and we finally have an opportunity to put our money where our mouth is,” Hahn said. “I hope all good actors take advantage of this program, and that Google can become the gold standard for other inbox providers to follow suit and implement a similar approach before the cycle is over.”

Eric Wilson, the executive director of the Republican-aligned Center for Campaign Innovation, also lauded the new policy, arguing that it brings email outreach closer in line with postal mail. 

“Glad to see Google’s action on this front,” Wilson wrote in a post on X. “Democrats’ email marketing infrastructure gave them a leg up in the fundraising battle that had nothing to do with their message or candidates.”

Some Democrats, on the other hand, warned that the new policy could essentially give a pass to deceptive fundraising tactics and allow campaigns and committees to spam Gmail users with unsolicited messages. 

Josh Nelson, the CEO of progressive digital ad platform Civic Shout, acknowledged that both parties “are guilty of sending unwanted email,” but argued that “Republicans have historically been far worse offenders, routinely sending unsolicited messages and using deceptive fundraising tactics that generate exactly the kind of negative user feedback spam filters are designed to respond to.”

There are already best practices in place for bulk email senders, Nelson said. Google’s new policy, he added, effectively gives political campaigns “special treatment.”

“Google’s own long standing advice to bulk email senders has been simple: Don’t send email to people who didn’t sign up to receive it,” Nelson said. “Political campaigns should have to play by those same rules rather than getting a special lane around them simply because their emails contain political speech or fundraising appeals.”

–Updated on Aug. 18, 2026 at 4:15 p.m. ET.