Joe Biden flexed his newfound financial advantage over President Trump with a $15.4 million television and radio advertising campaign targeting at least nine states, an investment that puts the Democratic nominee on track to outspend the Republican incumbent by $1.4 million over the next seven days.
The former vice president is on offense in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, with advertising expenditures that are outpacing Trump in each of these critical battlegrounds. Additionally, the president is defending Georgia, Iowa, and Ohio, states he won with relative ease four years ago, with sizable ad buys that are going virtually unchallenged on the airwaves by his Democratic opponent.
To mark the first week of the fall sprint to Election Day, the Biden campaign infused his advertising campaign with two new television spots. The first, a mostly positive, 60-second ad lays out the nominee’s domestic agenda. The other, a 30-second spot, hits Trump over Social Security, claiming his proposal to defer or eliminate the payroll tax would push the popular entitlement program into insolvency.
“In the few states he’s targeting, Trump has been badly outspent on the airwaves,” Biden campaign spokesman Michael Gwin said. “Even then, the Biden-Harris campaign — powered by enormous grassroots support — has rapidly erased Trump’s cash-on-hand advantage as his team spends money like drunken sailors.”
Trump is aggressively contesting Minnesota, Nevada, and New Hampshire, states he lost narrowly in 2016. Flipping just one of those battlegrounds could deliver the president an Electoral College victory and shield him from what is sure to be a deficit in the national popular vote. In Minnesota and New Hampshire, the Trump campaign was on pace to outspend the Biden campaign during the period beginning Tuesday and running through Monday.
After the Biden campaign raised a record $364.5 million in August, some Republicans worried that the Trump campaign, previously flush with cash, would have a hard time keeping up. On Tuesday, Trump even acknowledged weighing whether to write a personal check to his campaign for up to tens of millions of dollars. But in a subsequent conference call, Trump campaign officials dismissed suggestions the president might lack resources down the stretch.
“From this day forward to Election Day, we will have more resources to spend than we did in 2016, and it won’t be close,” Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien told reporters, as he announced urban radio ads targeting black voters set to run in more than a dozen media markets to go along with a new television spot aimed at battleground voters that promises an economic recovery and coronavirus vaccine and warns Biden would undermine progress.
“I’d also note,” Stepien added, “that early investments that the campaign and the [Republican National Committee] made in the field will not only pay dividends, starting now during periods of absentee and early voting and, of course, on Election Day — but it’s also too late to be adding staff, as I see Joe Biden doing in certain states around the country.”
Biden’s overall edge in ad spending over the next week is apparent in Arizona, where he is outspending Trump $2.1 million to $380,000; in Florida, where the Democrat is outpacing the president $4 million to $3.7 million; in Michigan and Pennsylvania, where in each state, the former vice president is spending $1.8 million, compared to the incumbent’s $1.5 million; in North Carolina, where Biden is investing $2.5 million, compared to Trump’s $1.4 million; and in Wisconsin, where the challenger is airing $1.4 million in advertising, compared to the president’s $1.2 million.
Meanwhile, in Minnesota, Trump ($1.2 million) is ahead of Biden ($804,000); as he is in New Hampshire, spending $563,000 to Biden’s $286,000. In Ohio, Trump is investing $790,000 for a statewide buy, while Biden is on the air in just two markets: Toledo ($101,000) and Youngstown ($65,000). The president also is spending $1.2 million in Georgia and $230,000 in Iowa, two states where Biden has yet to go on the air but could do so later this fall.
