Huge ad spending pours into defining Harris in the ‘blue wall’ battlegrounds

The spending illustrates how Democrats and Republicans are in broad agreement about the states in play and how one side or the other will win the election. And what those ad dollars are actually buying tells a key story about the campaign. Harris’ campaign is running an equal mix of positive and negative ads on broadcast TV, according to the tracking firm AdImpact, while former President Donald Trump’s campaign is running almost exclusively negative and contrast ads — a demonstration of how focused voters and both campaigns are on defining Harris as she runs against a three-time candidate who has inspired entrenched views among American voters.

“It’s simple: Everyone has made up their mind about Donald Trump. Trump’s numbers are the stickiest things in politics; they don’t move,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist and presidential campaign veteran. 

“What’s moveable is Harris — we’ve seen a lot of movement in her numbers since she entered the race,” Conant continued, noting the dramatic increase in Harris’ favorability numbers since she took over as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate. “And there are a lot of voters who haven’t made up their minds about her because she’s new to the campaign, so there’s an ability to introduce new information. That’s why you’re seeing Trump pounding negative information about Harris and Harris feeling the need to give positive information to push back.”

The trend is similar to how the two parties handled the same period in the 2020 election — when Joe Biden ran a significantly higher share of contrast and positive ads compared with Trump, who relied primarily on contrast and negative ads but still ran a small share of positive spots. But this time, Trump has essentially stopped running any positive ads of his own on broadcast TV. (This analysis of AdImpact data doesn’t include ads that run only on digital platforms or local cable.)

AdImpact captured virtually no positive spots from the Trump campaign over the first 20 days of September. The majority of Trump’s ads are “contrast” ads — like one that criticizes Harris for her tiebreaking vote on Biden’s signature spending plan. 

“Twenty-two percent more for groceries, 50% more for gas, mortgage costs nearly double. Thanks a lot, Kamala,” a narrator says in one of Trump’s top commercials. “Trump had our economy humming; he’ll do it again.” 

The rest are strictly negative ads. 

“Their Bidenomics led to the highest inflation in 40 years,” the narrator says in one spot, adding: “Kamala Harris is clueless.” In another ad criticizing Harris’ support for transgender people and her 2019 support for providing prisoners and detainees access to gender transition treatment, a narrator says: “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”

The Harris campaign, meanwhile, has been airing about an equal mix of contrast, negative and positive spots as Harris looks to answer voter questions about herself — and not let Trump be the loudest voice talking about her. 

The negative spots are still biting: “We know who Donald Trump is. He’ll take control; we’ll pay the price,” one spot says, warning that a Trump presidency could lead to more restrictions on abortion. But there’s an equal amount of contrast spots, as well as positive ads telling the affirmative case for Harris. 

“I intend to be a president for all Americans and focus on investing, right now, in you, the American people. And we can chart a new way forward,” Harris says in a clip from her appearance in this month’s presidential debate, which is featured in one of her most-aired positive spots. 

Democrats argue that not just focusing on Trump will actually be more effective against him. Testing from the Democratic-aligned research group Blueprint found that ads featuring positive messages about Harris were far more likely than negative ads to move voters toward Harris in randomized trials. 

Aneesa McMillan, the former deputy executive director of the Democratic super PAC Priorities USA Action, told NBC News that while negative ads can “seem like the shiny object,” she has regularly sat in on focus groups where there’s clear voter “backlash” to ads strategists had assumed would be effective. That’s why, she said, leaning on ads contrasting the two candidates (a strategy used liberally by both candidates) can be more effective. 

“Vice President Harris is out there telling a story of who she is and what she can offer the American people through her work as vice president and how she plans to build on things,” she said.

‘It reflects a very close race’

The messages are getting blasted out with the amplifying power of tens of millions of dollars per day. 

Both sides are spending more this month than they did four years ago — more than $300 million from Sept. 1 through Sept. 20, compared with about $200 million over the same period in 2020, according to data from AdImpact. And while Democrats had only a slight spending edge over the 2020 period ($114 million for Democrats and $88 million for Republicans), they have a nearly 2-to-1 edge in presidential spending this month.

The spending is also concentrated differently from 2020. There has been a significant uptick in the share of resources being devoted to the Great Lakes battlegrounds in the old blue wall, as well as Nevada, and a massive drying-up of spending in states like Florida, Ohio and Texas. Georgia, which didn’t get serious investment until late in the 2020 election, is now clearly a core part of the battleground campaign.

“It reflects a very close race in the sense that neither campaign is trying to win 300 electoral votes. There’s a recognition that this is going to come down to one or two states, and the campaigns are investing as much as they can in those targeted markets,” Conant said.

“Nobody’s trying to run up the score. Harris needs to win Pennsylvania and Trump needs to win Georgia — there’s not a whole bunch else that matters, and that’s reflected in what you’re seeing,” he continued.

As Democrats continue to enjoy a fundraising windfall after Harris took over the campaign from Biden, their fundraising advantage has extended to spending leads so far this month in virtually every state on the presidential battleground. 

Pennsylvania is drawing far and away the most ad spending this month, from both parties. Democrats spent $50 million there over the month’s first 20 days, compared with $29 million from Republicans. Both totals are more than twice what they spent over the same period in 2020.

It’s not just the increase in spending, but also an increase in share of spending. While Pennsylvania drew almost 20% of Democratic presidential ad spending and 11% of Republican spending over this period in 2020, it’s drawing more than a quarter of each party’s spending this year. It’s no surprise that the state, with the most electoral votes of any true swing state, sits at the center of the road to the presidency. 

Both parties are spending almost 1 of every 5 ad dollars this month in Michigan ($39 million from Democrats and $20 million from Republicans through Sept. 20). It’s a significant increase in Democratic spending from 2020 but a massive increase for Republicans — up from about $3.5 million during the comparable period last presidential cycle. 

And like in 2020, Wisconsin continues to draw a significant amount of ad spending — 13% of the total spending so far in September, compared with about 10% in 2020. 

While the share of spending has stayed relatively similar in Arizona, a key battleground that Biden flipped in 2020, there has been a major increase in how Democrats are prioritizing Georgia, at least through ad spending. From Sept. 1 to Sept. 20, 2020, Democrats spent just $2 million on the airwaves there. This time, they’ve spent 12 times that, more than $24 million — while Republicans have upped their spending from $8.4 million to almost $18 million.

Nevada, another Sun Belt state, has had an uptick in the share of spending, too.

Meanwhile, a longtime swing state, Iowa, has ceased to be a main battleground — with a resulting drop in ad spending. And no ad trend better illustrates the changing presidential battleground map than the complete disappearance of spending in Florida. 

In 2020, Florida drew one-quarter of all presidential ad spending in the first 20 days of September, as Democrats and Republicans duked it out in the longtime linchpin of the presidential map. But after Trump’s victories in 2016 and 2020 (and a huge win by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022), Democrats, at the presidential level at least, are abandoning the fight.

Presidential ad spending in Florida, where more than $47 million was spent on ads over the comparable 2020 period, is down to less than $1 million this month.