Do the US elections represent a historic break?
3:23
(CNN) ––
With 64 days to go until the US presidential election, the number of undecided states is far greater than we have seen in any recent vote, reflecting President Donald Trump's asymmetric politics and rapid demographic changes in the country.
Former Vice President Joe Biden has reserved space for television ads in a whopping 15 states, according to Medium Buying, a Twitter account that tracks where campaigns place ad time reservations.
Trump, for his part, has allocated advertising spending in 11 states so far, and all of them are part of the list in which Biden will also invest money for television ads.
MIRA: What is the Electoral College and what is its role in the US elections?
The 11 states where both campaigns have ad reservations are: Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Biden has also booked time in Colorado, Georgia, Texas, and Virginia.
"The territory of the presidential contest at the moment is enormous," noted Medium Buying.
Agree!
Now before we go any further, it's important to note that these are ad bookings, not ad purchases themselves.
And that is a fundamental difference.
Reservations can be changed or canceled entirely.
The money used to reserve ads in one state can be moved to another location if the campaign sees a need.
Therefore, ad bookings should not be viewed as a fixed indicator of how the two campaigns view the map.
Contests evolve and advertising decisions mutate with them.
However, ad bookings are, broadly speaking, a relatively reliable look at where the two campaigns believe their opportunities and vulnerabilities exist.
All campaigns tend to talk about this - do you remember when Trump was going to do a race in New Mexico? - but reserves tend to be a more telling indicator of where they think the race is and where they need to win to reach. the 270 electoral votes.
Why do some Latinos in Florida support Trump?
3:32
The fact that there are 15 states that meet that standard reveals how wide the two campaigns see the potential field of contention, and also how far we've come in the past two decades in terms of what can be considered an indecisive state.
If you think about the elections of 2000 and 2004, the group of undecided states was familiar and small.
Colorado, Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and maybe one or two more.
And that was pretty much it.
Both parties were forced to invest tens of millions of dollars in those handful of states, not because they wanted to, but because they couldn't justify spending that money in other states in the hope of reversing it in their favor.
Barack Obama surpassed this small group in 2008 with victories in Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia, states that no Democrat had won at the presidential level in decades.
And Trump further expanded the undecided state category in 2016 by scoring victories in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, typically states where Democrats won.
What is clear from the ad bookings for this fall is that we are now dealing with an even wider field of contention.
Both campaigns have booked time in Arizona, a state long safe in the Republican column.
The same is true of Minnesota, a state in which a Republican presidential candidate has not won since 1972.
LEE: US elections: a nightmare scenario in 2020 seems increasingly likely
Generally speaking, the size of the field of contention –– and the states included in it–– suggests that Biden a) is playing more offense than defense and b) sees a massive Electoral College victory as a genuine possibility.
Of the 15 states where Biden has made reservations, 10 were won by Trump in 2016, while five - Colorado, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Nevada and Virginia - went to Hillary Clinton.
Trump's reserves have a similar divide;
8 are states that he won in 2016 and 3 in which Clinton was victorious.
That data is generally consistent with the shape of the race, with Biden leading the way nationally and in most swing states, and Trump trying to hold together the coalition that elected him in 2016.
The most fascinating part of the advertising reserve is that Biden has planned campaign time in Texas and Georgia, two major electoral vote hoards and two states that have not been won by a Democrat running for president since 1976 and 1992, respectively.
Polls in both states show the dispute is close: Trump has a 3.5-point lead in the average Real Clear Politics polls in Texas and an average margin of 1.1 points in Georgia.
Senior citizen vote will be key for Donald Trump 3:31
If Biden were to win one or both between Texas and Georgia, he would have at least the chance of a major Electoral College victory of more than 350 electoral votes.
(House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said for most of the past two years that Democrats must win "big" to prevent Trump from aggressively contesting the outcome and refusing to budge.)
But here it is about more than just the Electoral College calculation.
If Biden goes ahead with his plans to spend on ads in Texas and Georgia, which is a big conditional given how expensive state-level television purchases are in both places, it would likely force the Trump campaign to spend (and heavily ) in those states as well.
And every dollar Trump spends defending Texas or Georgia (or both) is a dollar he can't play offense with in Minnesota, Nevada or Virginia.
The widening of the electoral dispute has been taking place gradually during the last three elections.
But that 15 states are in the undecided category so late in the presidential election cycle, including Electoral College monsters like Texas and Georgia, is a new chapter in modern American politics.
And one that has all kinds of possibilities, for both parties, in future contests.
Presidential Campaign Electoral CollegeDonald TrumpElections 2020 United StatesJoe Biden