Heading into a debate that could be one of Donald Trump's last chances to try to land a lasting blow on Democratic rival Joe Biden, the fundamentals of the race haven't changed much in the last couple months. Biden is ahead nationally by about 7-9 points, give or take, depending on the poll. Trump's war chest remains depleted, while Biden is flush with cash. And rather than expanding the map, the Trump campaign is focused almost entirely on defending states he won in 2016, writes the Washington Post.
According to Biden's campaign, the former vice president spent money in 13 states last week, including only three that Hillary Clinton won—Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Nevada. Meanwhile, Team Trump spent in 12 states, with Minnesota and Nevada being the only states he lost in 2016, meaning Trump’s on defense in a total of 10 states.
The Biden campaign is expanding spending in states that weren't originally considered battlegrounds, such as Iowa and Georgia, where three key Senate races are being fought. The campaign has also launched targeted media campaigns aimed at wooing veterans, rural voters, Black voters, and Christian voters. Republicans have been pushing the notion that Democrats' opposition Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett is fueled by anti-Catholic sentiment, rather than a very real aversion to her extreme judicial philosophy. The Biden campaign says it is happy to have the conversation with voters since Biden's Catholic faith is so central to his being.
In the Midwestern states where white voters generally play an outsized roll, Biden is holding strong while Trump is retreating. That includes Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Michigan, which the Post characterizes as the "symbolic and strategic core" of the race. Since Sept. 22, Trump has reportedly yanked $2.1 million in ad reservations from those core states in order to shift it south to states like Florida.
But the factors that have fueled Biden's advantage in those states have also made him surprisingly competitive in Iowa and Ohio, two states that Trump won handily and where Biden appears to at least be in striking distance. Yet the cash-strapped Trump campaign has pulled ads from both states for the next week even as Biden prepares to make a fresh push into Iowa. There's a reason Trump has held two rallies in Ohio in the past week—while he may not have money, he does have time since rather than being a real president, he simply plays one on TV.
In the meantime, the $10 million in ads that Biden reportedly plans to divide among Iowa and Georgia marks areas of expansion both in the Heartland and the Sunbelt. Medium Buying, a site that tracks broadcast and digital ads, reports that Biden and the DNC are also upping a coordinated ad campaign starting Wednesday in Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, and Pennsylvania.
Overall, Democrats and Biden continue to hold a number of strategic advantages in terms of both resources and demographics. Generally speaking, Biden is doing better than Hillary Clinton did among the white voters in the Rust Belt who narrowly pushed Trump to victory in 2016. But at the same time, demographic shifts—such as an explosion of new voters in the Atlanta suburbs—are making the Southern states more gettable for Democrats.
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign has utterly failed to expand the map, likely because Trump is too desperate for adulation from his faithful to actually push messages that might attract new voters.