Elections
Trump set to spend more on ads in Minnesota than Michigan or Wisconsin in 2020 homestretch
President Donald Trump’s campaign is currently planning to spend more money on advertising in Minnesota than in either Wisconsin or Michigan during the final stretch of the 2020 race, a significant shift in strategy as its path to 270 electoral votes narrows.
Trump’s campaign is slated to pour more than $14 million into Minnesota between the beginning of September through Election Day, compared to $12.6 million in Michigan and $8.3 million in Wisconsin, according to Advertising Analytics, a media tracking firm. The sums include ads booked to run on TV, radio and online.
It’s a reversal from the previous three months, when the president’s campaign had devoted more money to Michigan and Wisconsin, two Upper Midwest battlegrounds that Trump surprisingly carried in 2016, but where he has seen his standing slip. The Trump campaign still has more ad money reserved, about $15 million, in another key swing state they took from the Democratic column in 2016, Pennsylvania.
The aggressive play for Minnesota amounts to a potential lifeline for Trump: If he held his 2016 map, including states like Florida and North Carolina, and Joe Biden won back Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, the president could still eke out an Electoral College victory by flipping Minnesota, a state he lost by just 1.5% four years ago.
“A lot of people look at Minnesota as the Pennsylvania of 2020,” Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien said on a call with reporters on Tuesday.
Ad reservations can be changed at just about any point between now and the election. But Trump’s campaign is increasingly staking its chances on a come-from-behind victory in a state that like other midwestern battlegrounds is filled with white working-class voters, who have been at the core of the president’s base. Polling averages show Trump is marginally more competitive in Minnesota than in either Wisconsin or Michigan, though he trails Biden in all three states.
Trump’s campaign is deploying a string of in-person visits to Minnesota to compliment the ad blitz. The president’s eldest son, Don Jr., is scheduled to visit Duluth on Wednesday and his daughter-in-law Lara Trump will be in Minneapolis on Thursday. Both the president and Vice President Mike Pence logged visits to the state in August.
Democrats are heartened the Biden campaign is taking Minnesota more seriously than Hillary Clinton did in 2016. Whereas Clinton spent no money on general election ads in Minnesota, Biden has reserved $4.8 million in broadcast and cable commercials between now and Election Day. Relegated to virtual campaigning, it counts having made 1.5 million contacts by phone.
Dr. Jill Biden is slated to visit the state on Wednesday as part of her education tour and Joe Biden has said he’ll make his own visit there in the coming weeks. The Biden campaign is still spending three times as much money on ads in Michigan and nearly double in Wisconsin compared to Minnesota.
Minnesota residents can begin voting by mail or in person Sept. 18.
“The most important thing the Biden campaign is showing Minnesota that I don’t think the Clinton campaign did a good job at at all is, ‘We don’t take your vote for granted. We want your vote, we take your vote seriously,’” said Rep. Betty McCollum, a 10-term Democrat representing Minneapolis. “COVID didn’t exist in the last election and Sen. Clinton was not here.”
Yet there are still worries among some Democrats about a confluence of local issues that could play into Trump’s hands. The killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in May elevated the “defund the police” movement, which is popular only with a narrow portion of progressives. Property damage and unrest has continued to plague Minneapolis, which is grappling with a summer crime spike.
“I think they are waking up to the fact that this is a close race,” Mike Hatch, Minnesota’s former former Democratic attorney general, said of the Biden campaign. “The problem is you can’t point the finger at Biden for the mistakes around the looting, but you can point to an overall Democratic Party problem there.”
The Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party recently passed a resolution calling for a moratorium on copper nickel mining, opening up a sensitive rift between environmentalists and rural Democrats. And Democratic Gov. Tim Walz is battling the construction of an oil pipeline in northern Minnesota.
Lori Swanson, another former Minnesota attorney general who has endorsed Biden, said these issues have “created the sense of limiting or impacting job creation on the part of Democrats, which is certainly not helpful.”
Trump’s most likely path to victory in Minnesota is extending his margins in the 85 counties outside the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. While the Iron Range in the northeast part of the state is populated by union members and longtime Democrats, Republicans believe Trump’s energy message combined with his “law and order” cultural signals could resonate with even more voters there.
One of Trump’s ads there superimposes an image of Biden taking a knee in front of burning buildings. A mailer that state Republicans are distributing leads with the headline “The Radical Left Has Taken Over Joe Biden.”
“All outstate Minnesota he’ll really have to run up the score, but he’ll also have to perform at 2016 levels in the suburbs as well. And I think that’s going to happen,” said Max Rymer, a Minnesota Republican National Committeeman. “It’s going to be the most dramatic polarizing result we’ve ever had in the state of Minnesota.”
While the last Republican to carry Minnesota in a presidential election was Richard Nixon in 1972, veteran Democratic operatives contend that it’s long been a relatively competitive state that requires attention.
Bill Hyers, who oversaw the Midwest for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, recalls feeling pangs of anxiety when internal data showed his candidate’s lead shrinking to just 2 points in Minnesota after the Republican National Convention. He sounded the alarm to campaign leadership for more ad dollars and once extra funds were granted he explained away the move to the media as a flight to blanket western Wisconsin, which falls into neighboring Minnesota’s media market. He now credits the infusion of funds with Obama’s eventual 10-point blowout over John McCain in Minnesota.
“The midwestern states have become tougher for Democrats. All of them — Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin — they’ve all got very similar type of people. It’s not like they are much different just because there are these arbitrary lines drawn to break them up,” said Hyers, who said he is glad to see Biden’s substantial investment there. “Like why mess around with it? You’ve raised over $300 million a month. Who cares? I’d rather see them spend money there than Texas.”
Lou Frillman, a Democratic donor from Minnesota, believes Biden only benefits when Trump steps into the state.
“Biden wins Minnesota. I think that’s true if he comes here, I think that’s true if he doesn’t come here,” Frillman said. “I’m hopeful the president comes here, five times would be good. Hatred, vitriol, all the dog whistles. Load it up. It appeals to the slice of the electorate but it doesn’t appeal to a majority of people.”
“You know the old saying, if your opponent is drowning, throw him an anvil,” he added. “In this case, Trump will grab the anvil on his own. Don’t stop somebody from continuing to damage themselves.”
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