Trump Campaign Makes Baffling Decision on Midwestern Ad Spending

President Trump wasn’t supposed to win the 2016 election – at least not according to the plethora of pundits and pollsters who were being paid to make wild predictions in the weeks preceding that fateful contest.

For all intents and purposes, it was Hillary Clinton’s election to lose, and many mainstream news personalities sauntered into work on election day 2016 ready to call it for Clinton.  Heck, even Clinton herself hadn’t written a concession speech, again reiterating that there was little belief that Trump could win.

Further clouding the picture were what some observers claimed were strange choices Trump’s campaign made in the midwest, visiting districts completely abandoned by Clinton and the Democrats.

Spoiler alert:  Clinton was embarrassed by the result of that election, and Trump’s manic midwestern tactics were proven worthy.

So, maybe, the latest bit of oddball behavior out of the Trump 2020 campaign will somehow make sense in the end.

President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign is slashing television spending in the Midwest, canceling millions of dollars in advertising in states that carried him to victory in 2016.

He’s been off the local airwaves completely in Iowa and Ohio. The campaign also has given up at least $2 million worth of reservations in both Michigan and Wisconsin since early September. And in Minnesota, a state Trump almost won four years ago and has expressed confidence in flipping, his team already has chopped about $5 million from its projected fall TV budget.

The numbers, confirmed by the media firm Advertising Analytics, reflect a race where Democrat Joe Biden has gained a fundraising advantage over Trump and where polling suggests these states are competitive toss-ups or tipping toward Biden. The Trump campaign, meanwhile, according to data shared by Democratic ad trackers, has in recent weeks boosted its TV presence in the Sun Belt battlegrounds — Arizona, Florida, and Georgia — and Nevada, a state Trump lost in 2016.

The 2020 election is now less than a month away, making any sudden, reflexive movements by the candidates all the more noteworthy.