August 12, 2016

Donald Trump Is Doing Pretty Well Considering That He Isn’t Advertising At All

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There’s been a lot of talk lately about the fact that Donald Trump has so far spent $0 on TV advertising. Here is Jeet Heer:

Hillary Clinton has entered the field with $13 million in Olympics ad spending, but her competitor is nowhere to be seen. Astonishingly, Donald Trump’s campaign is spending zero dollars on Olympics advertising. And it’s not just in Olympics ads that Clinton is winning by default. To date, the Trump campaign has been unwilling to spend one thin penny on television advertising.

….In recent weeks, he’s upped his fundraising game, bringing in more than $91 million. So Trump has the money, he’s just not choosing to spend it. This is further evidence that Trump’s not running a real campaign, but something closer to a scampaign.

Maybe. But does it occur to anyone that this might be a danger sign for Hillary? She’s about 6-7 points ahead of Trump at the moment, which sounds great until you think about the fact that she’s spent $90 million on ads to Trump’s zero. Perhaps the Trump campaign is gambling that ads this far ahead of Election Day don’t have much effect, so he might as well wait until September and then unleash a gigantic blitz. They might even be right. In any case, once he does start advertising, surely that will cut Hillary’s lead.

How much will it cut her lead? That’s a good question, isn’t it?

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