Bloomberg knocks Trump back on his heels in Florida

Billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s $100 million investment in Florida to defeat Donald Trump is recasting the presidential contest in the president’s must-win state, forcing his campaign to spend big to shore up his position and freeing up Democratic cash to expand the electoral map elsewhere.

Bloomberg’s massive advertising and ground-game spending, which began roughly a month ago, has thrown Trump into a defensive crouch across the arc of Sunbelt states. As a result, the president‘s campaign has scaled back its TV ad buys in crucial Northern swing states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan — a vacuum being filled by a constellation of outside political groups backing Joe Biden.

“It’s forced the Trump campaign to retrench in Florida. You can see it in the spending habits, in television and digital. They’re investing more at the expense of places they need to win,” said Steve Schale, who leads the pro-Biden Unite the Country super PAC.

“Basically, Trump has now been committed to the equivalent of land war in Asia by having to spend so much of his money in Florida, a state he has to win to get to 270 Electoral College votes,” Schale said. “And as a result, he doesn’t have the resources to compete everywhere he would like.”

Schale said his group and the other major Democratic super PAC, Priorities USA, have been able to focus their dollars in other parts of the country, particularly the Upper Midwest. Democratic super PACs, meanwhile, have been able to focus more attention on Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia — once-reliably red states where the president has also had to commit additional resources for the past month, in addition to Florida.

Florida, the largest and most-expensive swing state, has 10 media markets and is so competitive that outside groups and the presidential campaigns have spent and reserved a record $263 million on TV ads from June through Election Day, according to data compiled by the media tracking firm Advertising Analytics.

Since the beginning of September, Trump has added more than $6 million to his total in ad spending in Florida, according to Advertising Analytics. During that same period of time, with Democrats freed up to attack elsewhere, the Trump campaign has also been forced to plow more than $7 million in ad spending into Georgia — a state he was once expected to win easily — and nearly $6 million in Arizona, another state he won in 2016.

Trump also decreased planned spending by nearly $13 million in Ohio, more than $6 million in Minnesota and nearly $3 million in Wisconsin, reducing his advertising footprint in the region.

David Johnson, former Florida GOP executive director, said the Bloomberg money has had a clear effect on forcing Trump to withdraw to his core states, instead of competing across a wider national map.

“This is not your 2016 election, so abso-freaking-lutley the Trump team knows they have to maintain something closer to parity in [gross rating] points and spots in the home stretch,” Johnson said. “You best not be massively outspent in Florida the last two weeks and expect to perform well on Election Day, where Republicans have to turnout in vastly larger numbers to win.”

In Pennsylvania, former Republican Congressman Phil English said Trump’s campaign has a clear advantage on the ground, where the GOP spent all summer organizing and knocking on doors. But on TV, English said, there’s a huge disparity in the area he once represented, Erie County, one of the bellwethers of the swing state.

“The Democrats are literally flooding everything with anti-Trump and pro-Biden advertising. It’s a concern,” English said. “We’re definitely seeing seniors reacting to the coronavirus here, and the steady messaging from Democrats over how the Trump administration has handled coronavirus has moved a lot of people.”