Both campaigns focus on winning Texas with ads, visits
With just aweek until early voting starts, both presidential campaigns are turning their attention to Texas.
While Joe Biden is launching new TV ads in San Antonio and El Paso today, the Trump campaign is sending Housing Secretary Ben Cars onto Houston on Wednesday to help raise money.
It is yet more evidence of Texas becoming a battleground in 2020, something both Democrats and Republicans have been predicting for much of the year.
Biden’s willingness to spend money on TV in Texas is a big statement from a strategic standpoint. While it is hardly the massive TV ad buys typical in swing states such as Pennsylvania and Florida, Biden’s campaign announced Texas will be part of a 15state, $280 million program.
Biden’s campaign has not detailed exactly how much it is spending, but Federal Communication Commission records show he has bought more than $100,000 of air time in San Antonio over the next week, targeting college and pro football games, nightly news programs and soap opera viewers. The Dallas Morning News reported that Biden has reserved as much as $6 million in ad time from now until Election Day statewide.
In addition, the Lincoln Project, a group of Republicans running ads against President Donald Trump, announced they are spending $1 million on television in Texas this week, which will include Austin, San Antonio and Lubbock.
Nate Nesbitt, press secretary for the Lincoln Project, said the buys are part ofwhat they are calling “Operation Sam Houston.”
“We see an opportunity in Texas, andwe are going to take advantage of it,” said Mike Madrid, one of the Lincoln Project’s founders.
Carson, meanwhile, is set to headline a luncheon fundraiser for Trump’s campaign Wednesday, according to a copy of the invitation obtained by Hearst Newspapers.
The Biden buys in Texas include two ads in English and a more targeted Spanish ad highlighting K am ala Harris and her immigrant roots.
Those buys come as the Biden campaign has dispatched Doug Emhoff, Harris’ husband, for two days of campaigning in Texas that has included San Antonio and the Texas border — critical Democratic strongholds where the campaign is trying to boost turnout.
It is themost serious play yet for Texas by the Biden campaign. While Texas has been a virtual dead heat in public polling, the Biden camp has been reluctant to spend the type of money to aggressively compete in Texas’ numerous media markets.
No Democrat has won Texas in a presidential election since Jimmy Carter in 1976. But Democrats are convinced that gains in 2016 and 2018 show the state is inching toward them. Trump won Texas in 2016 by 9 percentage points, the closest presidential race in Texas since Democrat Bill Clinton came within 5 points of beating Republican Bob Dole.