Joe Biden is cutting into President Trump’s television advertising advantage, matching the incumbent’s ad blitz in Florida, a key swing state, while nipping at his heels in five additional battlegrounds that could decide the outcome of the fall campaign.
The Trump campaign was on track to spend $4.6 million over three days this week to air television spots in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, for an average daily spend of $1.5 million. The Biden campaign was on television in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin and is slated to invest $8.3 million over seven days, for an average daily buy of $1.2 million.
Critically, Biden is equaling Trump in Florida, where both were spending $400,000 per day, and outpacing him in Arizona, spending $171,000 daily to the president’s $121,000. In North Carolina, the former vice president’s daily spend was $229,000, not far behind Trump’s $233,000; ditto Pennsylvania, where the Democrat was investing $214,000 per day, right behind the incumbent’s $217,000. In Wisconsin, Trump was running $118,000 of television ads daily compared to Biden’s $101,000.
“We have outraised the Trump campaign for two straight months, are closing the cash gap, and will run a robust paid media program between now and Election Day that makes the positive case for Joe Biden’s trusted and tested leadership during a time of profound crisis,” Biden campaign spokesman Matt Hill said.
The Trump campaign expressed confidence that its edge in resources and plans to bombard the television airwaves would boost the president over time and erase the lead Biden has built in state and national polls.
“Joe Biden is an empty vessel, controlled by the radical socialists who now run the Democrat Party, and Americans will soon learn that Joe Biden has chosen not to fight these far-left radicals but instead embrace,” Trump campaign spokesman Hogan Gidley said.
This Washington Examiner analysis, based on data provided by Medium Buying, a firm that tracks campaign advertising spending, examined a Biden purchase set to run July 21-27 and a Trump buy that was scheduled to air Tuesday through Thursday of this week.
The Trump campaign has plenty of resources to support its robust advertising expenditures, closing the second quarter fundraising period with $295 million to spend on the campaign, compared to $242 million in cash on hand for Biden. The president, in conjunction with the Republican National Committee, also is supported by more boots on the ground, with an extensive field team that has been deployed longer and in more battlegrounds compared to the Biden campaign.
[Read more: Multimillion-dollar Biden-Trump ad wars begin]
But Biden’s aggressive television advertising campaign, which extends to states that traditionally vote Republican and those initially projected as Trump-favored, is a warning sign for the president.
The Trump campaign has been forced to air television ads Arizona, where Trump trails Biden narrowly, and in Georgia, where Trump is clinging to a small lead. Both states have been integral parts of the Republican Party’s Electoral College backstop for decades, with Arizona voting Democrat just once since 1948, for President Clinton in 1996, and Georgia doing so just once since 1980 — in 1992, also for Clinton.
The Trump campaign also has been compelled to invest in Iowa and Ohio. The battlegrounds are perennial swing states, but Trump won both easily in 2016, and at the outset of the campaign, he was expected to glide to victory in each again this year. This week, the president was spending an average of $67,000 per day in Iowa and $164,000 daily in Ohio — healthy investments. Biden was not on the air in Iowa or Ohio.
