Democrats are buying up ad time to screw over the eventual GOP nominee

(Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

published 18 April 2016

Pro-Clinton Democrats are buying up ad time at local television and radio stations in key swing states, Politico reports, aiming to lock in low rates and lay the groundwork to dominate traditional media before the Republican Party can even lock in a nominee.

One Democratic group alone, Priorities USA Action, has already spent more than $90 million in ad buys in just seven states, purchasing heavily in the Florida and Ohio markets. And that's just the beginning.

"What you have here is the foundation," explains David Axelrod, a top strategist from both of President Obama's campaigns who says Democrats are buying now in attempt to preempt the coming "glut" of election spending in these battleground states. Online ads, he suggests, will come next: "It'll be interesting to see what ancillary buys they make, not just on TV, but radio, digital. This is just foundation-laying."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

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