Biden is outspending Trump by more than 50-to-1 on radio ads. Here’s why.
Joe Biden is increasingly leaning on an old-school platform to draw rural, senior and Christian voters away from President Donald Trump in the final stretch of the 2020 race: the radio.
The Biden campaign has spent nearly $15 million on radio ads that have aired in all 50 states since the beginning of September, according to data the ad tracking firm Advertising Analytics provided to McClatchy. That’s roughly 56 times as much as Trump’s campaign, which has dedicated less than $270,000 to the radio airwaves across seven states over the same time period.
The Democratic nominee has used those ads in an attempt to cut into crucial segments of Trump’s base and also boost turnout among Black and Latino voters, aiming to reach pockets of Americans his campaign has found are still tuning into radio stations amid the coronavirus pandemic.
While Biden is still putting the lion’s share of his advertising resources into TV and digital, his team sees radio as a cost-effective way to target narrower slices of the electorate with more tailored messages. Patrick Bonsignore, the Biden campaign’s director of paid media, likened their radio ads to “a side dish on top of the main course” voters are receiving heading into November.
“Radio affords us the opportunity where you can get into a specific audience and have more meaningful and relevant communication with them,” Bonsignore said in an interview. “You have a captive audience that is specific.”
Even though fewer Americans now listen to traditional radio programming — especially during a global health crisis where many workers are no longer commuting on a daily basis — Biden has recently launched ad campaigns focused on rural parts of battleground states and religious voters. The Biden campaign has also aired ads on radio shows geared towards African Americans and Spanish speakers.
Radio listeners across the board also tend to skew older, and polls show Biden has made significant inroads with seniors, a group Trump won in 2016.
Biden has directed the bulk of his radio ad budget to five swing states, pouring $4.3 million into Florida, $2.2 million into both Pennsylvania and Michigan and $1.4 million into both North Carolina and Arizona, according to the Advertising Analytics figures. The campaign has also spent at least $100,000 in seven other battlegrounds, including Wisconsin, Minnesota and Georgia.
Meanwhile, Trump has spent $112,000 on radio ads in Florida, and a combined $154,000 in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Biden’s ability to expand his radio advertising is due in large part to his recent fundraising success. Entering September, Team Biden had $466 million on hand, compared to $325 million for Team Trump. Biden has also vastly outspent Trump on TV ads in battleground states over the last few months.
“When you have money, you can do all sorts of other things to have reach and frequency to cover the last little bits of the electorate that you’re missing,” said Mark Harris, a GOP media strategist based in Pennsylvania. “A lot of people aren’t listening to radio anymore, but among those who do, it’s a great way to get that additional reach.”
Trump has also aired radio ads focusing on Black, Spanish-language and Christian voters. But Samantha Zager, a spokeswoman for the campaign, dismissed the spending disparity with Biden, suggesting a radio-heavy strategy was out of date.
“When Joe Biden first ran for office 47 years ago, radio was one of a limited number of ways to reach the electorate,” Zager said in a statement. “But during Biden’s decades long tenure as a resident D.C. swamp monster, things have changed, and whether it’s through digital, texts, apps, TV or radio, President Trump’s campaign is sharing his message and reaching voters.
Ben Wieder contributed.
This story was originally published October 9, 2020 at 10:10 AM with the headline "Biden is outspending Trump by more than 50-to-1 on radio ads. Here’s why.."
