Brace yourself for the final throes of the months-long $500 million battle on television airwaves.
Donald Trump’s campaign said Tuesday it would spend $25 million on advertising during the final week, but he is still scheduled to be outspent by Hillary Clinton thanks to her more-organized and better-funded network of outside groups.
Trump’s campaign has so far reserved $17.4 million this week, but announced on Tuesday morning last-minute plans to buy additional airtime in new terrain like Michigan and New Mexico. Allied groups are throwing in another $1.1 million.
Clinton’s campaign is spending just shy of $14 million in the final week. Priorities USA Action, the primary super PAC supporting her bid, is putting up another $9.7 million.
All told, after the long and expensive struggle, the closing arguments between will play out as a $44 million bout, according to data from Kantar Media/CMAG, a company that tracks political advertising. Voters in the three largest battleground states will see upwards of $20 million in television ads.
Both campaigns have focused the largest slice of their spending on Florida, which will see nearly $10 million in ads this week. They’ve also put upwards of $5 million in each Pennsylvania and Ohio. Clinton, with a tremendous cash advantage over her Republican rival in the homestretch, in recent days has begun advertising in some states already thought to be in her column, including Wisconsin.
And on Tuesday, the campaign said it would also begin spots in the blue states of Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado and Michigan — and credited an $11.3 million online fundraising haul over the last three days for making it possible.
“The Trump campaign claims their path to White House is through states like these but we’re going to make sure those doors remain shut,” said Jesse Ferguson, a Clinton spokesman.
And those totals doesn’t include any new investments from the Trump campaign, which at one point pledged to spend $100 million total in fall television. It was not immediately clear whether the $25 million buy announced Tuesday reflected a total media plan for the final seven days, or an additional buy on top of the reservations already in place. The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
To match the spending, both campaigns in recent days have been rushing to craft and place new television ads to make the case in the final days.
Part of Clinton’s final push is an attempt to convince Republicans who are weary of Trump to fully commit to Clinton. To do that, the Clinton campaign will launch a series of ads that profile self-identified Republicans who broke with Trump over the 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape that showed the businessman casually talking about sexual assault.
The ads profile Tiffany Lewey of Texas, Terry Daniel from Arizona and Don McVaugh of Virginia, all of whom decided to break with Trump after the video was released.
“The values that Donald Trump has shown, they don’t represent me, they don’t represent what I want to teach my children or my family,” Daniel says in his ad. “When I first heard the tape, I immediately thought of my daughter. I wouldn’t feel good as a father voting for someone like that.”
All of the ads feature the voter saying while they don’t agree with Clinton on everything, they do plan to support her.
The ads will air in Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania, especially in conservative areas of each state.
Another Clinton spot, released Tuesday morning, is what the campaign sees as 60 seconds of Trump’s greatest hits against women, like criticism of a beauty contestant, allegations of sexual assault and the vulgar comments about grabbing women he made on an “Access Hollywood” microphone.
“Anyone who believes, says, does what he does is unfit to be president,” the ad concludes.
On Monday, Trump quietly began airing two new ads — both of which offer a more positive intonation than seen in previous Trump spots. One casts the campaign as a movement “to decades of broken politics with a new leader who is not part of the system” and does not mention Clinton at all.
The other paints different pictures of America as led by the two candidates.
“Hillary Clinton will keep us on the road to stagnation — fewer jobs, rising crime, America diminished at home and abroad,” the narrator explains. “Donald Trump will bring the change we’re waiting for.”
These spots have not been announced by the Trump campaign but were spotted airing on television stations by Kantar Media/CMAG.
