Bloomberg News issued a correction on a story about the Trump campaign canceling millions of dollars in Florida ad spending after President Trump’s reelection campaign pushed back on the report.
On Tuesday, Bloomberg reported the Trump campaign canceled $5.5 million in Florida advertising in the two weeks leading up to Election Day and that the president only has $350,275 budgeted for such ads. Tim Murtaugh, Trump’s communications director, blasted the story in a Tuesday afternoon statement.
He called the report “horribly wrong” and said the story “should never have been written.” Murtaugh went on to say that “the campaign, with the RNC coordinated buy, is up with a seven figure buy in Florida on broadcast TV alone.”
“In addition in Florida, we are up with six figures in local cable, six figures in Spanish language, and six figures on radio. Our ad buying week by week in the state has been consistent, and the reporting on this issue demonstrates a clear misunderstanding of how ad buying works,” he added.
Following Murtaugh’s denunciation, Bloomberg issued a correction “to include context that was missing from earlier version on additional spending planned by the Republican National Committee on Trump’s behalf,” the outlet said in a note affixed to the bottom of the story.
The report was updated to include a new paragraph to say: “The RNC is picking up some of that slack, buying $4 million in ads beginning last week. It’s now airing an ad in Florida attacking Biden on Medicare, falsely claiming that the Biden health care plan would eliminate private health insurance.”
Bloomberg had reported that since Labor Day, the Biden campaign added $197 million to its national advertising budget, while the Trump campaign cut $24 million.
Murtaugh said that last week the campaign “announced a $55 million buy over the final two weeks, which is a 40 percent increase over our previous levels. Just yesterday, we added $6 million on top of that for the final week.”
He said that the campaign is running ads in a dozen states, including Florida, as well as running ads nationally.
During a Tuesday call with reporters, Murtaugh said he is confident the campaign will be able to win the Sunshine State because of its vigorous “ground game.”
“You have to have a ground game. Joe Biden does not have one. The president does,” Murtaugh said Tuesday. “That’s why you saw the president close the gap in Florida.”
He added, “Florida is going to go the president’s way.”
According to a RealClearPolitics average of Florida polls, Trump is leading Biden in the state by a razor-thin 0.4-point margin. Average polling data from the past few months shows this is the first time that Trump has overtaken the former vice president.
According to NPR, in the first half of October, Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee raised $167 million. Trump and the Republican National Committee raised $82 million during the same period.
With one week until the election, Trump crisscrossed the country, hosting his signature “Make America Great Again” rallies in battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
Biden was campaigning in Georgia on Tuesday, a state that Democrats have not won since the 1990s but one that the campaign thinks it has a shot at capturing. RealClearPolitics shows Biden within striking distance of Trump, who leads by less than a 1-point margin.
