Restore Our Future, a super-PAC backing Mitt Romney, is launching ads in Minnesota and New Mexico for the final week of the presidential campaign.
The buys are significant: $1.1 million in Minnesota and $700,000 in inexpensive New Mexico. Neither state has been a target at the presidential level until recently, though both campaigns are now on the air in Minnesota and former President Bill Clinton stumped there on Tuesday, a sign the state has tightened in recent weeks.
Restore Our Future has long targeted states that are on the edge of being competitive — it launched a big buy in Pennsylvania earlier this week, has been airing ads in Michigan for months and was one of the first on the air in Wisconsin.
Both states remain long shots for Romney: President Obama has had a lead in the high single digits in most New Mexico polls, and while two recent Minnesota polls showed Obama's lead at 3 and 5 points, one week is not a lot of time to move poll numbers.
Like in
Pennsylvania, the well-financed group's ad buys might be as much about creating a narrative that Romney is expanding the map and, as one GOP strategist put it, "buying a lottery ticket" in the hopes that it can pull off a surprise.
The group will air two ads: One attacks Obama's economic plans, while the other touts Romney's efforts to help a business partner find a missing daughter.
