trump biden tv ad spending
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters onboard Air Force One after a campaign rally in Mosinee, Wisconsin on September 17, 2020
MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images
  • Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s campaign has turned the tides on what was once a massive fundraising disadvantage to President Donald Trump’s reelection operation, outspending the Republican incumbent on TV ads by three-to-one in August.
  • Biden is also sitting on a $141 million edge in cash on hand, according to the latest FEC filings and disclosures from the campaigns.
  • Advertising Analytics found the Biden campaign spent $65.5 million on TV ads through the last four weeks of August, compared to just $18.7 million for team Trump.
  • In the primary, Biden was unable to compete with the likes of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Pete Buttigieg among small donors.
  • Now, Biden has the fundraising winds at his back, with the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue securing more than $100 million in donations over the weekend following the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
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Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s campaign has closed what once seemed like an insurmountable fundraising gap from back in the spring, bludgeoning the Trump campaign three-to-one in ad spending in August and sitting on a $141 million edge in cash on hand, according to the latest FEC filings and disclosures from the campaigns.

In addition to the latest batch of filings, which went up Sunday night, the firm Advertising Analytics found the Biden campaign spent $65.5 million on TV ads through the last four weeks of August.

The Trump campaign only spent $18.7 million in that same timeframe.

The ad spending partially reveals where the campaigns believe the race is the most competitive, with states like Florida getting bombarded with ads while other battleground states have seen the Trump campaign pull back on the airwaves.

Further fueling the Biden campaign’s cash advantage is the record setting surge in donations to ActBlue following Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death.

On Saturday alone, more than $70 million flowed into the nonprofit fundraising arm for Democratic candidates.

By the end of the weekend, donors gave more than $100 million to ActBlue.

While a cut of those donations will go to down ballot candidates, the ActBlue surge and cash on hand advantage for team Biden put the former vice president in a strong position heading into the home stretch of the campaign.

During the primary, Biden was unable to compete with the likes of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg among small donors.

Since he's been the nominee, Biden has been able to rake in the cash by capitalizing on key events, such as the Democratic convention and his announcement of Sen. Kamala Harris as his VP pick.

Biden will face significant outside spending, however, regardless of his present advantage over the Trump campaign.

The digital front will also be hotly contested, with a 10 second ad from the Biden operation garnering 13.8 million views since it was tweeted out on Sept. 19

As Insider's Dave Leventhal reported recently, despite the turnaround in cash flow, the Trump campaign is not at risk of going broke — they actually have more money to spend now than they did at the same point in the 2016 campaign.

For now, viewers in swing states should get used to seeing a lot of Biden ads in the weeks leading up to Election Day on Nov. 3.

Read the original article on Business Insider