Facebook and Google are winning the political ad race. Here’s Twitter’s plan to catch up.

Twitter isn’t winning the fight for digital ad dollars — ask any campaign adviser. But just like the politicians who use its product, Twitter has a message for its followers: Don’t count us out just yet. Digital platforms are finally starting to see real money from political advertising, but so far almost all of that money is going to Facebook and Google. Analysts project $1.1 billion in political ad revenue will to flow to digital platforms in this election cycle — quadruple the spending from the 2012 elections. Facebook and Google are expected to scoop up as much as 85 percent of that revenue, with Twitter a distant third.

Twitter’s plan/hope: Wait for the summer, when the campaigns move from fundraising to promoting broader themes and messages — and when Twitter’s strength in brand advertising can help. That’s also a concession to the reality Twitter faces today: Right now, the campaigns are most interested in direct-response ads intended to drive a specific outcome like a campaign donation. Twitter enables some of that through “lead generation cards,” which allow the campaigns to collect a user’s email whenever they respond to an ad appearing in their timeline. But Twitter isn’t anywhere near as strong in direct-response ads as Google and Facebook are.