How Biden destroyed Trump’s TV ad ‘death star’
The Democrat’s fundraising gusher has enabled a national ad strategy that’s helped put reach states in play.
www.politico.com
Biden is saturating the airwaves and outgunning his opponent by a margin of about $178 million in ad buys from June 1 through Election Day, according to data from the media-tracking firm Advertising Analytics.
Beyond the messages that both sides relay in their commercials, the ad buys themselves tell the story of the state of the presidential race — particularly the way that the Biden campaign deployed freighter-loads of cash to gain an advantage over Trump in national and many battleground polls.
"What Biden's campaign is doing is pretty unique," said John Link, vice president of Advertising Analytics, which provided the data for this story.
Of the $421 million Biden has spent and reserved on TV, a higher portion than usual for campaigns — 15 percent — is on nationwide cable and broadcast TV programs seen by the nation's 208 local markets, whether they're in a swing state like Arizona, a blue state like Massachusetts or a red state like Idaho.
Biden's national buys are seen as a key ingredient in making former swing states like Ohio and Iowa look like battlegrounds again. The campaign is advertising heavily on shows such as Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, which are popular among seniors, and older people especially are watching more TV during the pandemic.
Normally, presidential campaigns prefer a targeted approach of buying ads in local markets in battleground states, with relatively few national buys. That usually means presidential campaigns, in effect, are running 10 or fewer related statewide races.
But in late spring, Biden's campaign saw the map starting to expand in his favor, with as many as 17 states in play. Trump's standing in polls were plummeting over his handling of coronavirus while historic sums of campaign donations began flooding into the Democrat's coffers.
At the same time, ad rates purchased through stations in battlegrounds with major Senate races — such as Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia – were so high that the Biden campaign calculated it could spend slightly more money on ads purchased through the national networks. Those spots would obviously have the benefit of reaching all the swing states — even the biggest reaches for him, like Texas.
The economies of scale achieved by buying national ads in bulk and reaching a broader audience would ironically save money, the campaign concluded.
The scale of Biden's fundraising and ad buying have been jarring for Trump's campaign, which once likened the president's now-evaporated advantage to the "Death Star."
Nick Everhart, a veteran Republican ad consultant, said the combination of Trump's troubles and Biden's ad spending and placement are showing up in polls. States such as Texas, Ohio and Iowa look more in play than anyone expected at the start of the campaign cycle.
"A lot of the movement in some of these red-leaning states has been from white people over 55 who are at home during the pandemic and watching a lot of 'Wheel of Fortune,' a lot of 'Jeopardy' and a lot of local news," Everhart said. "The way those seniors have broken to Biden, in conjunction with how the president has handled the pandemic, looks like it's paying off."
