Remember how just a few weeks/months ago our nervous nellies were telling us how Trump had lost the election by not spending millions and millions on tv ads.
Many of us wondered if they were financially connected to the tv ad business.
If he does lose, that’s where it would have been lost. It’s all Hillary has - literally all she has. Trump is indeed outmaneuvering her everywhere else...but the “nervous nellies” just don’t think it is a great idea to not try to reach a significant number of voters who just get their information from watching talk shows, game shows, sitcoms, etc. and are influenced mainly by political advertising...even if in the end it works...plus paid ads are the only way to get around a media filter and reach voters directly.
But, an ad campaign can be too negative. In the Kentucky Governor’s race last year for example, the Dem Jack Conway was overwhelming Matt Bevin on the airwaves without response...but the ads were so oversaturated and particularly vicious / nasty and he had virtually no balance with positive advertising that it made people get mad at Conway for filling up their commercial breaks with those rude condescending ads that it ultimately helped Bevin because there was so much blowback against Conway - in the last month Bevin then ran a lot of positive ads about himself and that sealed Conway’s fate. Conway blew millions of dollars running ads that backfired that were very poorly conceived and did very little retail politicking - going out and meeting voters and was relying almost entirely on going to fundraisers to run negative advertising. Bevin focused mainly on going to gatherings and meeting voters directly. The result was a significant victory on election night - which polls were not showing - Bevin was down 5 points in about every poll and he won by 9. Hillary seems to be doing similar things - fewer meet the voters events to make time for more fundraisers to run ads instead. The result could be the same.