Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s supporters have stepped up their advertising efforts this week, working to counterbalance the fanfare of the Democratic National Convention.
The pro-Trump group Rebuilding America Now PAC is spending nearly $2.2 million this week on television ads, most of it in battleground states, according to the ad tracking firm Kantar Media/CMAG.
That’s a splurge for the super PAC, which has never spent that much in a week. Since the end of the primary season, it has invested only $1.7 million in advertising.
This week’s Rebuild America Now ad buy includes $787,000 in Florida, more than $551,000 in Ohio, and around $115,000 in the Philadelphia area, host to the convention. The remainder is on national cable television, according to the CMAG/Kantar Media data.
The group’s two ads aired 114 times Monday, the first day of the convention. Only one of those airings was during primetime coverage of the convention, the data shows. The majority were during talk and news programs in the morning and evening, and during other popular evening shows.
The first ad, a minute-long spot on the outsourcing of jobs, says the Trump-Mike Pence ticket will lead to a resurgence of factory and skilled trades jobs. “We’re going to be working again. We’re going to have great jobs again,” the narrator said. “We’re going to make America great again for everyone. Greater than ever before.”
A second spot uses comments Clinton made on outsourcing, apparently in a 2005 speech in India — “I don’t think you can effectively restrict outsourcing.”
Trump is being massively outspent in the arena of television advertisements. The $7.2 million spent by groups supporting him pales in comparison to the $60 million Clinton and her allies have spent trying to define Trump and bolster their own candidate.
Trump has yet to spend any of his own campaign funds on general election television ads, according to Kantar Media/CMAG.