Aug 16, 2020 - Politics & Policy

Inside Trump's DNC counterprogramming

Jonathan Swan

Trump delivers remarks to the City of New York Police Benevolent Association at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J. — Trump delivers remarks to the New York City Police Benevolent Association at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J. Photo: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

The Trump campaign anticipates that Joe Biden will get a significant polling bump out of the Democratic National Convention. So the campaign has planned a week of heavy counterprogramming, with the president traveling to four battleground states.

The state of play: Vice President Pence will be in Wisconsin. Members of the Trump family will be campaigning, and two Trump-Pence bus tours with surrogates will be on the road and doing local media, said Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh.

The Trump campaign has also executed a massive digital ad buy for this week. The campaign will be taking over the YouTube masthead — prime internet real estate — for 96 consecutive hours from Tuesday through Friday, Murtaugh said.
The Trump campaign will also be doing homepage takeovers of the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Daily Caller for various 24-hour periods during the DNC, Murtaugh added. It will also run ads on the Fox News website.

By the numbers: "The total of the online buy is high 7 figures. Some of the ads are performance-based, so the total could push to over $10 million," Murtaugh said.

The Trump campaign also has a TV blitz running in early-voting states, including Wisconsin (where the Democratic convention was supposed to be) and also on national cable, Murtaugh noted.

Editor's note: This story has been corrected to reflect that the campaign will not be doing a homepage takeover of Fox News, but will be running ads.

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Inside Trump's DNC counterprogramming

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