Taxpayer-funded advertisements promoting Donald Trump and his administration continued airing this week despite the president’s pledge to stop using government money for political ads.
The $17mn advertising campaign, which has drawn two legal challenges over the alleged misuse of public funds, had an outsized reach in areas where candidates are fighting closely contested House and Senate races, including in states such as Alaska, Iowa and Maine, ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Analytics firm AdImpact estimated that more than half a million dollars was spent on the ads on Friday alone.
One ad titled “Final Battle” which aired on daytime programmes The View and Good Morning America, opened with Trump saying: “The final battle with you at my side, we will demolish the deep state.”
Another, titled “Maduro”, aired during the comedy show Scrubs and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and showed clips of the US military intervention in Venezuela. It closed with a voiceover saying: “Don’t play games with this president in office because it’s not gonna turn out well.”
The White House said the spots, which featured Trump, were public service announcements rather than campaign ads because the president was not on the ballot.
AdImpact found that the government-funded ads generated around 1.8bn total impressions, including 138.7mn across 206 local television markets through October 9, including areas far from large population centres.
A coalition of campaign finance watchdogs, a labour union and an Alabama legislative candidate have challenged the advertising campaign in federal court, arguing the Trump administration had improperly diverted public funds to promote the president. A separate lawsuit was filed by the Democratic National Committee on Wednesday.
But the geographic spread of the campaigns in key electoral districts appears to undermine the administration’s comments.
Twenty-six of the 30 local markets with the highest ad spend overlapped with competitive House or Senate races.
Total government spending on ads in local TV markets was more than $2.8mn, while about $14.7mn was spent on national broadcast advertisements.
Alaska, where the midterm House and Senate races are competitive, received over 5.7 per cent of local ad spending despite having less than 1 per cent of households.
Ads directed to media markets around Iowa — including the Cedar Rapids area as well as nearby Rochester, Minnesota, which overlaps with all four Iowa congressional House districts, three of which are competitive — received at least 1.6mn impressions.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted from September 30 to October 5 found that 86 per cent of US adults, including 80 per cent of Republicans, considered it inappropriate to use taxpayer funds for election-related television ads featuring the president or Cabinet members.
Trump on Monday said Maga Inc., his aligned Super Pac, would pay for future ads. The White House later clarified that president’s announcement did not refer to reimbursing the government for ads it had already purchased.
But on Tuesday another spot aired with a government funding disclaimer, according to the lawsuit, which alleges at least $100,000 in public money was spent after Trump made his pledge.