Former President Donald Trump and his allies have outspent Vice President Kamala Harris and her team 25-to-1 on television and radio ads, according to an Associated Press analysis of data compiled by AdImpact from Monday through the end of August. The massive ad blitz is concerning for Harris’s allies, as it shows Trump’s campaign preparedness to define the Vice President as a radical leftist.
Trump and his allies are spending $68 million compared to Harris’s $2.6 million during that time period. This disparity has led to growing concern among Harris’s supporters. Public opinion is like cement. It’s soft at first and then it hardens,” said Sarah Longwell, co-founder of Republican Voters Against Trump, in an interview with the AP. The next three weeks are definitive. She needs to define herself before Trump defines her.
David Axelrod, a Democrat insider, also expressed concern about the lack of Harris ads, noting that the machine behind Harris is still under construction. Mike Donilon — the way the ads worked before — the president’s guy, Mike Donilon, would work with one producer, tell him his ideas, the guy would produce stuff, and Mike would pick an ad, and they put it on the air,” said Axelrod on his podcast. They don’t — Mike’s not there, I don’t think, anymore. And, you know, they’ve got to very quickly build an operation to do this.
The role of Donilon, corrupt President Joe Biden’s chief strategist, is not yet defined in Harris’s operation, as reported by Politico Playbook on Thursday. A Harris campaign official said the campaign is working to get ads on air as soon as possible. We’re working to get up ads as quickly as we can (though it’s only been 3 days) and in the meantime she’s dominating earned media,” the “exasperated” official told Playbook. The Harris campaign released its first ad Thursday morning.