WASHINGTON (AP) – Donald Trump’s campaign is planning for what it says will amount to $140 million worth of advertising from now until Election Day.
The total, if executed, would include $100 million in television airtime and $40 million in digital ads, according to senior communications adviser Jason Miller.
The plan represents a new approach for the billionaire businessman, who has repeatedly bragged in recent weeks about how much less he’s spent than Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and seemed to rely heavily on free media coverage of his large rallies.
Through this week, the Trump campaign has put only about $22 million into TV and radio ads for the general election, according to Kantar Media’s political advertising tracker. Clinton has spent more than five times as much on those kinds of ads, $124 million so far.
Trump’s new ad buy will include 13 states, from key battlegrounds such as Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania, to new targets of Maine, New Mexico and Wisconsin, Miller said. About $40 million of the ads will play on national TV, he said.