Donald Trump campaign cuts TV advertising for strategy review

US President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign has pulled back on TV advertising as he trails Joe Biden in the polls.

US President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign has pulled back on TV advertising as he trails in the polls and searches for a winning message heading into the final months before the November presidential election.

The move comes two weeks after a new campaign manager was named and as Mr Trump has taken a more aggressive tack in his ads and on social media — a direction that has worried Republicans.

Mr Trump’s messaging has focused on protests and clashes with federal agents in Portland, Oregon, warned about suburban destruction and stoked unsub­stantiated claims of widespread mail-in voter fraud.

“With the leadership change in the campaign, there’s understandably a review and fine-tuning of the campaign’s strategy,” a campaign official said. “We’ll be back on the air shortly, even more forcefully exposing Joe Biden as a puppet of the radical left-wing.”

Nationally, TV ad spending by the Trump campaign dropped to less than $US1m last week after it spent more than $US9m each of the past two weeks, according to political-ad tracker Kantar/CMAG. Last week, the campaign of presumptive Democratic nominee Mr Biden spent $US10.6m on TV ads across eight states.

Mr Trump’s campaign also has yet to book virtually any ad time over the first three weeks of this month, though he is getting TV-ad help from outside the campaign. America First, the primary super political action committee supporting his re-election, will spend more than $US2m across Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and North Carolina last week and in each of the next three weeks.

The PAC, however, has stopped spending in Michigan, a state Mr Trump narrowly won in 2016 and which is viewed as one of his toughest to hold.

Michigan has also receded from the campaign’s TV spending. Since mid-July, the Trump campaign has spent less than $US100,000 there, while spending more on ads in 10 other states, including Georgia, Iowa and Ohio — states Mr Trump carried in 2016 and until recently weren’t expected to be competitive.

US President Donald Trump plays golf at Trump National Golf Club in Virginia on Saturday (Sunday AEST). Picture: AFP

Michigan is still included in the nearly $US150m block of TV-ad reservations the campaign has in place from September, although those reservations are easily changed close to their start dates.

The Biden campaign said its opponent’s strategy review is evidence that the President is losing ground in his re-election bid.

“Donald Trump is losing because he abandoned the American people, leaving us alone, without any coherent strategy to take on a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic and economic crisis that has already claimed more than 150,000 American lives and has cost us millions of jobs” said Biden campaign spokesman TJ Ducklo.

Mr Biden’s campaign has increased its spending in Michigan since mid-June, laying out $US1m there last week. On Thursday, the campaign also announced it was going up on Ohio airwaves as part of a seven-figure digital and TV ad buy in that state.

Mr Trump’s campaign was in a solid position until the corona­virus pandemic hit, up-ending a strong economy that was his best argument for a second term and presenting the President with the biggest leadership challenge of his time in office.

The RealClearPolitics average of national polls currently shows Mr Biden with a lead of 8.3 percentage points.

Mr Trump says polling missed his strength in 2016 and is repeating the same mistake.

But the campaign has demonstrated signs of worry. Two weeks ago, campaign manager Brad ­Parscale was replaced by Bill Step­ien, a longtime aide with more ­experience.

The Wall Street Journal