By Charlie McCarthy From Newsmax

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign plans a heavy post-Labor Day advertising blitz that will include what officials claim is the largest digital ad reservation ever in American politics.

The campaign has reserved $370 million in advertising, including $200 million on digital ads, to run through Election Day, The New York Times reported.

The initiative is focused on the key battleground states, CNBC reported.

Just $170 million is being reserved so far on television, as traditional TV audiences continue to fragment.

“This is a modern campaign in 2024 and we’re not just stuck in the times of old, where 80% of the budget has to be on television,” Quentin Fulks, Harris’ principal deputy campaign manager, told The Times.

The digital ads will on platforms such as Hulu, Roku, YouTube, Paramount, Spotify, and Pandora, CNBC said.

Since she replaced President Joe Biden atop the Democrats’ national ticket to run against former President Donald Trump, Harris has been trying to define herself among voters.

“By reserving early, the Harris-Walz campaign is securing inventory during high-viewership moments like major sporting events and other national programs before they sell out,” Fulks and co-deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty wrote in a campaign memo, CNBC reported.

The Harris campaign said its purchases of TV advertising would total twice what Biden’s 2020 campaign spent in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, four times what he spent in Georgia and six times what he spent in Nevada, The Times reported.

The campaign’s goal is to secure prime-time spots during season premieres of popular TV shows, as well as live sports events during baseball’s postseason and the NFL season.

“Rates go up the closer you get to the air date, and there is also less inventory to choose from. So by buying later, Trump is spending more per ad buy and getting worse ad placements, particularly for high-viewership programming like live sports,” Fulks and Flaherty said.

The Trump campaign rejected the notion that it needed to play catch-up with the Harris campaign.

“Ads supporting President Trump are effectively being seen by more people than [Harris] ads, which proves her campaign is spending recklessly and frivolously because they have no clue on how to run a winning campaign,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement to CNBC.

Charlie McCarthy ✉

Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.

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