Donald Trump is poised to be outspent on television this week by the largest margin since he began running general election advertisements.
Barring a sudden unannounced buy of television advertising time, Trump’s campaign and his allies will be outgunned by a nearly 7.5-to-1 ratio by Hillary Clinton and her allies, according to a CNN analysis of data from the ad tracking firm Kantar Media/CMAG.
That’s the largest disparity since Trump began running general election advertisements in mid-August.
Before that, Clinton and her super PAC outspent Trump by even larger margins. In one early July week, his forces put up less than $1 million in ads to the nearly $13 million spent by Clinton and her primary super PAC, Priorities USA.
Trump’s efforts to narrow the gap have been focused largely on four battleground states: Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. He has also invested $2 million in Virginia, although his advertising habits in that state and others have been sporadic.
His $2.1 million buy this week will air a new ad criticizing Clinton for calling many of his supporters “deplorables.”
It features images of Trump supporters while a narrator explains Clinton was describing “people like you, you and you.”
Clinton responded with her own advertisement, a minute-long spot that mashes together various Trump insults.
There is a dose of good news for Trump, however small: Rebuilding America Now, the best-organized pro-Trump super PAC, will return to buying television time this week after three weeks off the airwaves. It is launching a $100,000 buy in Pennsylvania, a media buying source told CNN.
Clinton’s campaign has spent more than $110 million on general election television advertising, while Trump’s campaign has spent less than $19 million.