WASHINGTON — Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has spent the summer on the rise. Now, her team is outlining its strategy for the next phase of her 2020 campaign — with massive spending on ads and a new grassroots push.
In a memo to supporters on Tuesday, Warren's campaign manager, Roger Lau, announced that the campaign will soon be up on the airwaves and online in crucial early voting states while expanding their grassroots organizing efforts beyond those places.
The campaign is set to make a whopping eight-figure ad buy in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, Lau said in the memo — their first paid advertising effort on the airwaves.
"It will be more digital than old-school broadcast television," he said, adding that the ads are from an in-house group as opposed to the traditional "consultant-driven approach." The digital buys will start immediately, while TV time is being reserved now to start in the next few months, a campaign aide told NBC News.
Some of the ads shared in the memo highlight Warren's populist and anti-corruption messages while reminding voters she "has a plan" to fix it. Others feature images of President Donald Trump and other administration officials — such as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin famously holding sheets of U.S. bills — as Warren talks about combatting corruption in Washington. The message she delivers: "I know what's wrong, I know how to fix it, and I'll fight to get it done."
The campaign memo also outlines field team expansions in states with primaries and caucuses further down the primary calendar, including Florida and Texas — where both the Democratic Party and outside groups are already organizing early in hopes of winning in 2020.
Warren's campaign is also adding organizers in states with big down-ballot races for Democrats, such as Maine and Georgia, as well as states like Michigan and Minnesota that saw Democratic gains in 2018.
Among the Warren campaign’s biggest expenses throughout the race so far have been their field team efforts. She raised eyebrows in April for how much of her campaign war chest she was burning through as she amassed a big operation on the ground.
