Donald Trump's first general election ads to start airing this weekend

A Donald Trump billboard in New Hampshire. — (Image credit: Darren McCollester/Getty Images)

This weekend, the Donald Trump campaign will air television ads for the first time in the general election.

A congressional source told CNN that on Tuesday, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his aides held a conference call with Capitol Hill Republicans, telling them that ads will start running in five swing states. A Trump adviser said the ads will run in North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, Florida, and Pennsylvania, all states where Trump is trailing Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the polls.

So far, Clinton has spent $61 million on ads, the Green Party's Jill Stein has spent $189,000, and Libertarian Gary Johnson has spent $15,000. Since the Republican primary ended, two pro-Trump super PACs and the National Rifle Association have spent about $15 million on ads supporting Trump, CNN reports. Republican sources close to the campaign didn't think Trump would start a big advertising push until September, and Trump himself said 10 days ago it was a "little early" to start spending money on ads.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.