Donald Trump's campaign will roll out their first ads in battleground states on Friday. | AP Photo Trump campaign to air first TV ads starting Friday

More than 100 days after he became the presumptive Republican nominee and with fewer than 90 days until the election, Donald Trump is planning to launch his first barrage of television ads in the battleground states starting this Friday.

Trump will begin by airing ads in five key states: Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks confirmed. The buys were first reported by the Wall Street Journal and CNN.


Trump’s ads come after months of relatively unanswered ads from Hillary Clinton and her super PAC, which have spent a combined more than $100 million flooding the airwaves, mostly with ads attacking Trump as unfit for the presidency in nine swing states.

During the Olympics, for instance, a Clinton campaign ad highlighting that Trump-branded apparel was made in China and Bangladesh has run in heavy circulation.

Trump has been buoyed by ads from the National Rifle Association and two super PACs, which have spent a total of $12.4 million on his behalf, according to NBC News.

The size of the Trump campaign’s initial battleground ad buy was not clear.

Trump has reported raising more than $80 million for his campaign and the Republican Party in July, and his campaign has said he began August with $37 million cash-on-hand. Many Republicans have called on Trump to tap into those funds and begin airing TV ads to try to halt his recent slide in the polls, fearing the race could slip from his grasp.

Trump’s fastest path to the presidency is by winning all the states Mitt Romney won four years ago, and adding Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida (To reach 270 electoral college votes, Trump would also have to win North Carolina, which Romney won.)

But recent polling has shown Trump trailing in all five states where he is buying ads — the majority of which he must win to have any serious shot at the White House. In fact, the super PAC supporting Clinton, Priorities USA, announced this week that it was canceling three weeks of ads in Pennsylvania in September as some recent polls have shown Clinton leading by as much as double digits.

Trump trails by 9 points in the most recent North Carolina poll, from NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist.

The initial reservation is telling of how far the map has shrunk from Trump’s early days of boasting about pushing longtime Democratic states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Connecticut and New York into the Republican column.

Instead, he is buying his first ads in the traditional, voter-rich battlegrounds of Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania.