The Trump campaign is frantically spending money to stave off plummeting poll numbers in a number of states the president carried in 2016, signaling trouble and a defensive posture in the months leading up to the general election.
In the past few weeks, the president’s reelection team has spent more than $1 million on television ads in both Iowa and Ohio, two states he flipped from the Democrats in 2016 and where his margin of victory over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton was more than 9 points. Voters in Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, and Sioux City saw more than $400,000 in television ads, while those in Ohio are beginning to see a nearly $1 million ad campaign there.
Polling in both those states shows warning signs for Trump. Losing both would make it difficult, though not impossible, to win reelection. In Ohio, a RealClearPolitics average of recent surveys has him leading by just 0.5 points over Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, with a survey conducted in June showing Biden ahead by 2 points.
Polling is sparse in Iowa, but a survey conducted in early May, before the George Floyd protests, had Trump leading by 2 points. Trump won the state in 2016 by 9.5 points, a nearly identical margin to Obama in 2008.
The story is much the same in Arizona, where the campaign has committed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Facebook ads attacking Biden. The campaign announced that the president would also be flying to Phoenix for a “Students for Trump” rally later this month, marking his third trip to the state this year. Biden currently leads Trump by an average of 3.4 points, with one poll taken at the end of May showing Trump with a single-point advantage. Trump won Arizona by 3.5 points in 2016.
And the rallies won’t end there, with the president also planning on visiting Texas, Florida, and North Carolina.
“We’re going to start our rallies back up now,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday. “We’ve had a tremendous run at rallies. … It’s been an amazing thing to behold.”
Though the Republican National Convention has been moved to Jacksonville, Florida, the party will still hold one day of festivities in Charlotte, North Carolina. Trump will then accept the party’s nomination in Florida. In both states, Trump faces an uphill battle. Although an average of polls shows Trump with a 0.3 lead over Biden in North Carolina, the two latest surveys from the state show Biden with a 1- and 4-point lead, respectively. Biden has also led Trump in every poll out of Florida since April, putting his average lead at 3.4 points. Trump won both those states by 3.7 and 1.2 points in 2016.
