Tracking the Trump Campaign Ad Strategy
The centerpiece of the Trump campaign’s ad strategy to reach battleground voters has consistently been grounded in anti-immigrant rhetoric. In 2018, Wesleyan Media Project had found that on Facebook, between August 1 and September 30, 23.3 percent of the Republican ads on the digital platform discussed immigration. Just like the 80 percent of Republican TV ads on immigration in the same cycle, the bulk of the ads portrayed immigrants as criminals or threats to public safety and national security.
In 2020, the campaign has sharpened their messaging. The Trump campaign has retooled the strategy, bundling his anti-immigrant messages into multi-issue lines of attacks -- “amnesty” and “illegal immigrants” meets the “radical left”, healthcare and a scarcity of jobs, among other issues.
According to Bully Pulpit Interactive, the Trump campaign has spent over $7 million since March 30 on anti-immigrant Facebook ads alone. This does not fully include expenditures for the new ad tactic, such as the $10 million-plus YouTube ad campaign - featuring Trump’s “Radical, Extreme, Left” ad that bundles claims against Joe Biden on taxes, citizenship for undocumented immigrants, and the radical left - mailers (i.e. highlighting the radical left, taxes and “amnesty” together), and the millions more spent by anti-immigrant PACs (i.e. America First Action Super PAC’s ad).
