Trump campaign finally prepares to go on the air

The campaign of Republican nominee Donald Trump is beginning to shop for ad rates, according to National Journal:

Trump Campaign Begins Shopping for TV Ad Time

The Trump cam­paign’s me­dia buy­er, Stra­tegic Me­dia Ser­vices, re­ques­ted TV ad rates in 17 states Thursday, ac­cord­ing to two sources with know­ledge of the move. The states on the list are: Ari­zona, Col­or­ado, Flor­ida, Geor­gia, In­di­ana, Iowa, Maine, Min­nesota, Michigan, Mis­souri, New Hamp­shire, Nevada, North Car­o­lina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vir­gin­ia, and Wis­con­sin....

If he ul­ti­mately de­cides to hit the air­waves, Trump is start­ing at a massive dis­ad­vant­age. Clin­ton and al­lied out­side groups, which have been on air throughout the sum­mer, have re­served nearly $100 mil­lion in ad time across a hand­ful of swing states and na­tion­ally, NBC News re­por­ted this week. The Clin­ton cam­paign has TV ads booked through early Septem­ber, while the main su­per PAC sup­port­ing her can­did­acy, Pri­or­it­ies USA, has air­time re­served through Elec­tion Day.

Mean­while, Trump has yet to launch a single TV ad since wrap­ping up the Re­pub­lic­an nom­in­a­tion in May, and sup­port­ive out­side groups have re­served less than $1 mil­lion in ad time for the fall. Trump, who has re­lied heav­ily on press cov­er­age and so­cial me­dia to get his mes­sage out, of­ten ques­tions the value of run­ning TV ads. His cam­paign only spent $19 mil­lion on TV ads dur­ing the GOP primary, far less than many of his well-heeled rivals.

The Trump campaign is behind in the polls and, as the article notes, will be going up with commercials after ceding the air war to Hillary Clinton and her allies for months. Whether it will make a difference at this point remains to be seen.