If Rallies Will Be Limited in Size Trump Should Start the Ad War Early

Since the coronavirus will probably continue to limit how large political rallies can be throughout the fall campaign, Trump will need to utilize his impressive election warchest to purchase ad buys that aggressively attack Biden earlier than he did against Hillary.  In 2016 Trump had so much media attention that he could campaign effectively, often getting his message out at rallies, with few ads until the last two months of the campaign.

But since any rallies will be smaller, Trump should compensate for their diminished effectiveness with negative ads against Biden over the summer and continuing all the way to election day, instead of waiting until Fall to launch the airwar like he did against Hillary.

From October 16, 2016 –

When Trump counter attacks, he should not focus on policy but go personal instead. Interestingly, he is preferred by the electorate on a number of issues. But on policy he has maxed out his advantage. The public has already absorbed the policy differences between Trump and Clinton, and there is no further point of reminding the electorate of what they already know.

What they have not thought about are her personal negatives; and it is her personal ratings where the most return on investment for Trump rests.

If Trump attacks Hillary with ads (and he will need to include the scandals in the ad mix, as Republicans usually must do, to get around the media blackout) about her enabling of her husband’s history of sexual assault, Bill Clinton’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein, email and financial scandals, and her role in Benghazi, and any other scandal Trump may have information about, I would expect the polls to once again close between them just as they did during his September offensive which moved him from behind to ahead.