Trump’s ads last ran nearly a week ago in four battleground states: Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Since then, the GOP presidential nominee has ceded the airwaves to Hillary Clinton — and is only poised to launch a limited, less-targeted ad campaign in the days before next week’s debate.
While his campaign announced a new ad on Tuesday, it’s only going to run on national cable news stations and during two Sunday morning public-affairs shows, according to data from The Tracking Firm, a company that monitors media buys. And even with that seemingly modest buy — the full extent of which wasn’t clear on Wednesday night — Clinton is still outspending him this week many times over.
“It’s unprecedented for a major-party nominee in this century to have such an on-again, off-again TV buy,” said Elizabeth Wilner, a former TV-network political director who, until last month, monitored political advertising for Kantar Media/CMAG.
The strategy has perplexed political media buyers who aren’t affiliated with the campaign.
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