North America · 17 September 2026 to 19 September 2026 · 3 headlines · CNN
Trump's absence from Republican campaign ads
A CNN analysis of ad-tracking data finds that Donald Trump is conspicuously absent from Republican campaign advertising ahead of the midterms, even as he urges supporters to 'pretend I'm on the ballot.' Between September 1 and 15, Republican advertisers aired just 12 TV spots mentioning Trump, about $1 million out of more than $160 million spent on over 500 GOP ads in that window - under 1% of spending. Democrats took the opposite approach, spending nearly $23 million on 95 ads that invoke Trump's name, tying Republican candidates to him in races from Michigan to Maine to North Carolina.
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