At long last, Donald Trump is out with his first television ad of the general campaign. The commercial, which begins airing Friday in a handful of swing states, focuses on what has been the chief pillar of the GOP nominee’s campaign: border security above all else.
The 30-second spot describes two starkly different versions of the United States, one led by a President Hillary Clinton where “it’s more of the same, but worse,” and one led by a President Donald Trump where the country is “secure” and “safe again.” The fact that Trump offers no details on how he would achieve that should hardly be a surprise. The celebrity businessman can ramble through an entire speech without getting specific, after all.
More noteworthy than the content of the ad, however, is simply that it exists at all. Before Friday, Trump had not run a single general election ad this year, while Clinton had spent $61 million flooding the airwaves across the country. Trump’s ad buy—roughly $5 million over 10 days—won’t close that gap, but it does suggest that the he has finally come to terms with the fact that he can’t win by simply relying on free and social media to reach American voters, an increasing number of whom have been souring on him the more they’ve seen of him this summer.
