Trying to expand map, Biden launches ad blitz in Georgia, Iowa
Biden putting his large cash advantage over Trump to immediate use with new ad buys
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Joe Biden isn’t sitting on his cash.
Hours after the Democratic presidential nominee’s campaign announced it had a large campaign cash advantage over President Trump’s reelection team at the beginning of September, Biden officials said Monday morning they were going up with a new ad blitz in Georgia and Iowa as they try to expand the general election battleground state map.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The launching of ads in Georgia and Iowa brings to a dozen the number of states where the campaign is pouring in resources to create a “broad and diverse map that paves multiple paths for Joe Biden to reach 270 electoral votes.”
The Biden campaign announced Sunday night that it and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) began September with $466 million in the bank – roughly $141 million more than the cash on hand for the president and the Republican National Committee (RNC).
The large financial advantage for Biden is a dramatic turnaround from the early spring when Trump enjoyed a massive campaign cash lead over the former vice president. The Biden campaign has used the resources to vastly outspend the Trump campaign to run ads in the key battlegrounds since the beginning of August
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Former President Barack Obama carried Iowa by six points in the 2012 election, but Trump flipped the state from blue to red four years ago, topping 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton by nine points. An average of the last public opinion surveys in Iowa compiled by Real Clear Politics indicates the president with a 1.7-point edge over Biden.
Georgia – long a red state – tightened in the 2016 election, when Trump captured the state’s 16 electoral votes by just five points. An average of the last public opinion surveys in Georgia compiled by Real Clear Politics indicates the president with a 1.3-point edge over Biden.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The Biden campaign has long eyed both states. Campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon predicted in May that “there will be an expanded map in 2020. We believe that there will be battleground states that have never been battleground states before.”
She noted that Georgia was firmly in that list -- and emphasized that Iowa was one of the states that Trump flipped in 2016 that they were hoping to turn blue again.
Besides Georgia and Iowa, the other 10 battlegrounds where the Biden campaign’s up with ads are Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Nebraska and Minnesota.