I generally don’t pay a lot of attention to The Daily Kos, but I do find their campaign coverage, which includes reports on public polling, interesting, because while the numbers are sometimes their own numbers – through the Civiqs polls – more usually they’re citing other polls, so I feel that I’m getting something from outside of the progressive epistemic bubble, a bubble which is not nearly as water-tight as the right wing bubble, and certainly not as irrational, but is occasionally even more irritating.
But something I see nowhere else is their analysis of campaign ad spending. I may have mentioned this before, but it’s worth noting that they – by whom I mean Kerry Eleveld of the Daily Kos Staff – seem puzzled by the irrational approach that a Trump Campaign Organization, which by all rights should have money coming out of its ears, is spending in these critical weeks:
The Trump campaign’s profligate spending over the summer is forcing it to make some painful decisions about which states to devote advertising resources to, and some of those decisions are frankly head scratchers.
But here are the baseline numbers: the Biden campaign outspent the Trump camp in TV advertising by more than $75 million between Aug. 10 and Sept. 7, $97.7 million to $21.6 million, according to Bloomberg News.
- FL: Biden $23.2 million, Trump $6.4 million
- PA: Biden $16.8 million, Trump $0
- NC: Biden $11.5 million, Trump $3.7 million
- AZ: Biden $10 million, Trump $1.4 million
- WI: Biden $9.2 million, Trump $1.5 million
- MI: $8.5 million, Trump $0
While dollars do not guarantee votes, they do buy attention and remind voters that they should be doing their homework. Naturally, many voters in this hurry-up, ADD world of ours are unduly influenced by campaign ads, right and left; it is one of my sad little dreams that, someday, American voters will sit down and soberly do their homework, rather than relying on such intellectual shallowness as being dyed-in-the-wool Republicans or Democrats.
Back to the story, Eleveld found this bit about my home state of Minnesota puzzling as well:
But the battleground disparities for Team Trump are arguably even worse since Labor Day, with the campaign logging zero local ads from September 8-14 in Arizona, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and instead directing its limited funds to Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota, according to Medium Buying, a group that monitors advertising buys.
The most eye-popping part of that broadcast map is why Team Trump would be advertising in Minnesota (10 electoral votes) while leaving Pennsylvania and Arizona uncontested, both of which have more electoral votes (20 and 11, respectively). Trump didn’t win Minnesota in 2016 and he doesn’t necessarily need its 10 electoral votes if he hangs on to other key states that he both won in ’16 and appear much more competitive now, according to the Real Clear Politics polling averages.
To my mind, this spending plan is simply the result of the third-rate personnel, planning, and corruption that seemingly always surrounds Trump. Former top-dog Parscale is rumored to have directed a lot of money to companies he controlled when he was in control, and I would not be the least surprised to learn that such corrupt behavior is rife throughout the organization.
And it might be helpful to trace the money going to Minnesota. Recipients might be worthy of intense investigation by the local news organizations looking to pick up a Pulitzer Prize. Such corruption as I’m envisioning is rarely accompanied by rectitude, but more likely public displays, for those who lust after wealth rarely wish to keep their success, illicit as it might be, secret. Advertising it is often part of the dream, rubbing it in the face of those they hate.
I remain hopeful that Biden will win Minnesota by 10 points, as I’ve predicted before. Senator Smith’s (D-MN) 11+ point victory in 2018 over State Senator Housley (R-MN), and Trump’s continued immoral behavior, suggests it’s quite possible he’ll lose by 10 to 15 points.
Do me a favor and remind all your Trump supporter friends that 20,000+ lies is quite a blot on their soul, and they might want to reconsider.
