According to an analysis by The Daily Pennsylvanian, Vice President Kamala Harris's presidential campaign has outspent former President Donald Trump's campaign on ads in the 19104 ZIP code.
Credit: Derek WongVice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign has outspent former President and 1968 Wharton graduate Donald Trump’s campaign on digital advertisements targeted to Penn's ZIP code, according to an analysis by The Daily Pennsylvanian.
The DP used data for locally targeted ads on Google and Snapchat from a project developed by Andrew Arenge, director of operations for the Penn Program on Opinion Research and Election Studies, to compare targeted digital ad spending in the 19104 ZIP code. The analysis found that Harris has outspent Trump by an estimated $36,004 since she became the Democratic nominee.
Since August, Harris has outspent Trump in monthly ad spending targeted to the 19104 ZIP code
Harris ran 867 ads between Aug. 2 and Oct. 7 targeted to Penn’s ZIP code, compared to 20 ads from Trump starting from April 17, with the most recent on Sept. 5. In September alone, the Harris campaign spent an estimated $26,389 on digital ads locally targeted to the 19104 ZIP code. The Trump campaign’s highest spending month was May, with an estimated expenditure for targeted digital ads of $2,184.
“I’ve long been convinced that this data is a good leading indicator of where candidates are allocating their resources and how they perceive their voters’ locations,” Arenge said in a recent article with Penn Today.
Higher digital Democratic spending levels support this view. According to data from The New York Times, voting precincts in the 19104 ZIP code recorded margins of +70 to +90 for Biden in 2020.
The Harris campaign's digital ad spend exceeds $10K on the topic of the economy in the 19104 ZIP code
Trump's digital ad spend exceeds $1.5K on the topic of immigration in the 19104 ZIP code
Harris’ top digital ad topic targeted to the 19104 ZIP code has been the economy. Since August, her campaign has spent an estimated $10,936 on 306 digital ads about the economy targeted to the area code. The next four most popular topics for Harris’ digital ads in 19104 were Project 2025, abortion, healthcare, and attacks on Trump. Trump’s locally targeted digital ads predominantly covered immigration, with an estimated expenditure of $1,861, followed closely by ads on the economy.
Harris' digital ad spending in the 19104 ZIP code surpassed $1K daily between Sept. 10 and Sept. 17
Some spikes in daily targeted spending on Harris’ ads appear to coincide with campaign-related events coming to Philadelphia. The most active period in Harris’ daily spending on digital ads targeted to the 19104 ZIP code occurred between Sept. 10 — the day of the presidential debate at the National Constitution Center — and Sept. 17, when Harris spoke at the Community College of Philadelphia.
Data on locally targeted digital ads offer a partial view of the advertising that Penn students and residents of the 19104 ZIP code receive, but they do not reflect expenditures on statewide and nationwide ads or on ads shown outside of digital platforms.
“On social media, I’ve probably seen more Kamala ads, but I’ve still seen a lot of Trump ads," College senior Dominic Woods said. "Whenever I’m watching sports, usually football, the amount of Trump ads is vastly larger.”
While watching football, Woods recalled seeing the same Trump ad three times, ending with the tagline: “Kamala is for they/them; Trump is for you.” According to NBC News, Trump’s anti-transgender ads are the most seen during professional and college football games. The ad is currently running statewide across Pennsylvania, according to the Google Ads Transparency Center.
Both Woods and College junior Dillon Nittoli said that they don’t see Harris’ economy ads on a Trump national sales tax as effective messaging for young voters who are generally not as worried about taxes or economic affairs.
“I think some of the other issues; the painting of Trump as being really bad on human rights … they stick with me a lot more,” Woods said.
Students also expressed frustrations with the amount of political advertising present in the lead-up to the presidential election.
“It doesn’t matter the political affiliation; whenever I get a text message from these pollsters … I hate that,” Nittoli said. “I mean, I hate advertisements in general.”
“Say I’m down 50 points in fantasy [football], my team’s losing, and the next thing you know I hear 'Kamala is for they/them; Trump is for you.' At this point this is the 50th time I’ve heard this in the last three hours,” Woods added. “It’s effective in the sense that I am remembering it, but it does get irritating.”
The dashboard for Harris' ads includes digital ads on Google and Snapchat run by Harris For President and the Harris Victory Fund. For Trump, the dashboard includes ads run by Donald J. Trump For President, Inc., Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee, Trump National Committee JFC, and the outside groups Make America Great Again, Inc. and Securing American Greatness Inc.
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