Presidential ads mark a divide as both candidates spend big in battleground states

Presidential campaigns have invested $1.8 billion in seven key swing states since late July. Pennsylvania tops the list with $264 million, followed by Michigan ($151 million), Georgia ($137 million), North Carolina ($109 million) and Arizona ($91 million). Notably missing from the top five is Florida, a major battleground in the past, with $240 million spent in 2020.

As part of a final push, the Democratic National Committee has spent nearly $7 million for its new “I Will Vote” campaign aimed to boost voter turnout. That includes new mobile billboards in battleground states announced Monday following recently debuted ads last month across print and radio ads and other online ads in dozens of publications. According to the DNC, the I Will Vote website is attracting more than 1 million visits a day as people use the platform to find polling information.

The DNC’s campaign aims to provide voters with the resources and information necessary to cast their ballots, while also emphasizing the importance of civic engagement. Many of the targeted audiences include diverse communities such as Black, Native American, LGBTQ+, rural, Haitian and Latino voters. The campaign also is using custom creative for each group that incorporates nine different languages and various culture-specific references.

“Throughout this campaign, Democrats have worked with diverse vendors and talent that are reflective of our values as a party and the communities that we are reaching with the campaign,” DNC chair Jaime Harrison said in a statement. “This entire election cycle, the Democratic Party has not taken a single vote or community for granted and used every opportunity to engage with the pivotal members of our party that will take us over the finish line on Election Day by electing Democrats up and down the ballot.”

The Republican National Convention did not respond to Digiday’s request for comment about Republican ad spending. However, political agencies working with both parties discussed the high stakes and high prices of presidential ads this fall on stage at Advertising Week New York. Adam Wise, CIO of the Republican-aligned agency National Media, likened the short window of time to Hollywood’s rush to create awareness before a film arrives in theaters.

“Our opening weekend really is Election Day,” Wise said on stage in September. “And because we have this time crunch and we’re running our most amount of advertising right before Election Day, when they’re frankly fewer persuadable voters, the rates skyrocket. … We have to keep paying those rates because if we don’t, we’re essentially denying the largest megaphone.”

During this election cycle, there has also been a stark contrast in the issues highlighted in ads from both parties, according to AdImpact’s analysis of ads, which was based on total airings. The most common issue in Harris ads was taxation followed by abortion, the economy and health care. Democrats also focused on Harris’s character, with the most-aired ad highlighting her character and track record as a former prosecutor and attorney general. Meanwhile, the top issue in Republican ads for Trump was immigration, followed by inflation, crime, taxation and the economy.

By this point, final messages have already been tested and optimized for each audience to highlight candidates’ main strengths and contrasts, said Rob Shephardson, co-founder and partner of political agency SS+K. The close race has also required hyper-targeted advertising at a granular level: “It’s not a swing state or swing county; it’s swing households,” Shephardson said.

“You see it’s crystalized down to the essence and it gets back to what’s going to move these final voters,” said Shephardson, who oversaw video content for the Democratic National Convention. “Many national campaigns come down to the last weekend and the final 10 days. I’d argue [Harris] has closed really effectively both with campaign media and in free media.”

Compared to broadcast, digital ads have played a smaller role across Meta, Google, Snap and X. The platforms have attracted $419 million in presidential ad spend since Super Tuesday, or 17% of total presidential spending. On Meta, Democrats outspent Republicans $132.4 million to $24.7 million, on Google $180.7 million to $72.1 million, and on Snap $7.9 million to $310,000. However, Republicans outspent Democrats on X with $1.1 million versus $150,000.

As campaigns attempt to persuade undecided voters in the final weeks, they typically put money in places where it’s easiest to quickly allocate it, such as digital ads and targeted phone campaigns, said Brad Bauman, a principal with political strategic communications firm Raben. (He’s also one of the co-founders of White Dudes For Harris, an unaffiliated coalition of Harris supporters that began as a Zoom fundraiser with more than 40,000 attendees, similar to Win With Black Women and White Women: Answer the Call.)

The campaigns also closely watched final polls and early voting to see where they needed to shift spend to persuade undecided voters and to make sure their supporters actually vote. Bauman mentioned that the economic focus of Harris ads signaled her campaign has been cautiously optimistic, while the Trump campaign’s ads about immigration continued to focus on his existing voter base.

“My read of the differences is that the Kamala Harris campaign looks and sounds like it is still positioned in an offensive position, and the Trump campaign is doing its best to persuade its own voters to get out to the polls,” Bauman said.