Hillary Clinton is opening her wallet and seizing the moment.
Just hours after the votes were cast in the final Democratic primary, the Clinton campaign started reserving advertising blocks in eight battleground states on Wednesday, marking the presumptive Democratic nominee’s first significant attempt to define Donald Trump.
Clinton’s camp has already released one of the spots, which offers a harsh contrast between Trump — encouraging violence at his rallies and mocking a reporter’s disabilities — and the former secretary of state. Other spots are expected to be softer focus, positive ads about Clinton.
By reserving time in key swing states — at least Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia — the Clinton camp is sending an unmistakable message to the presumptive GOP nominee that it intends to press into traditionally Republican territory without spending too much time worrying about defending traditionally Democratic destinations where Trump insists he will compete, said a handful of high-level Democrats close to the Clinton effort.
The ad barrage — slated to start on Thursday — will combine with a weeks-old onslaught from the major pro-Clinton super PAC, Priorities USA Action, which has already blanketed swing states with its own blistering negative spots and plans to stay on air until Election Day.
Coming just as Clinton celebrates one of the strongest stretches of her campaign — marked by the clinching of the party nomination, Bernie Sanders’ fade, and endorsements from President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren — the move is a confirmation of the campaign’s intent to take an aggressive posture toward the real estate developer.
And, roughly one month before Republicans gather for their convention, Trump’s political operation shows no signs of being ready to respond to the flood that could easily cost three times as much cash as he has on hand — just $2.4 million, as of his last federal report.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“I’m of the opinion that the whole thing comes down to June. It’s the last month when kids are still in school, people are still paying attention and minds are open before everyone tunes out for summer vacation,” explained David Cohen, a Democratic strategist who led battleground budget planning for Obama in 2008. “The important piece is you’ve got to communicate in that window so that they can start to build up their messaging before everybody tunes out."
“It’s welcome news,” added Ohio Democratic Party Executive Director Greg Beswick, noting that Democrats' coordinated campaign staff on the ground there is already bigger than Trump’s entire national staff — meaning the ads represent a second phase in Clinton's operation there. “We’re Ohio, so political ads are always taking shape here. To me this doesn’t seem early whatsoever. It seems to me like a campaign that’s carving out a strategy and trying to dictate the pace.”
In omitting Pennsylvania, Michigan or Wisconsin from the buy while including North Carolina, a state Obama won in 2008 but not 2012, the Clinton campaign joins Priorities — which this month added North Carolina to its buy — in implying that it doesn’t believe the Trump argument that he can win over sufficient numbers of Rust Belt, working class white males to reset the map.
“Trump is a total dumpster fire right now, so why not try to put him in a place where Republican donors second-guess how much they want to put into him?” asked Steve Schale, who led Obama’s operation in Florida. “It’s a long election. You can’t kill anyone in July. But you can put him in a place where it’s really hard to come back.”
“This is [NBA star Steph] Curry knocking down a 3-pointer, up four,” he added. “Just put it away.”
Clinton and her allies had long been planning to unleash a large-scale television ad flood against Trump. And the move lands at an especially opportune time for her, as she steps up her swing state travel and as a series of new polls show her extending her national lead — to a wider margin in the Huffington Post Pollster average than Obama had over Mitt Romney at any point in 2011 or 2012.
Still, Sanders’ insistence on staying in the race through the final primary has meant Clinton is continuing to patch up her relationship with progressive voters. As Clinton tries to win over skeptical liberals who supported Sanders in the primary — beginning with a sit-down meeting between the two of them in Washington on Tuesday night — her increasingly strident anti-Trump message has emerged as a major part of her unity pitch.
“I’m a big believer that the campaign is what’s going to unify them, whether or not Bernie decides to get on board. The campaign moved on without him anyway already, and what’s going to bring the family together in the battleground states is her getting on TV and people getting excited about it, and then building up on the ground,” said Schale.
Democrats aligned with the Clinton camp expect the advertising investment could have a greater impact now than it would against a more traditional opponent because the Trump campaign has let the initial rounds of Priorities ads go without a response in the swing states.
“There are some people who didn’t know a whole lot about him in the primary that may have voted for him, but my experience in the last couple of weeks is as people hear more and more about him he’ll see an erosion," said Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio. “Between the Democrats who voted and the Republicans who voted for Kasich there’s a good number of people in Ohio that have never voted for Trump. You look at his negatives hitting 70 percent or more and a good aggressive ad buy could keep that number down.”
At the moment, the constellation of Trump super PACs remains frustrated without any guidance about their roles in his orbit, and a single nationwide cable buy remains the only television investment made to this point by any pro-Trump entity since he clinched his party’s nomination.
“He has a track record of not putting up television advertising, so even if you went out on a crazy limb and thought he was going to lend his campaign $100 million — which I don’t think anybody believes is real — I don’t know what they’d do with it,” said Cohen. “But I don’t think they’d buy television.”
