Former Vice President Joe Biden
Joe BidenSenator demands Trump Organization explain Chinese business dealings in light of Bolton book Hillicon Valley: Senate Republicans, DOJ target Section 230 | Facial recognition under the spotlight | Zoom launches E2E encrypted beta The Memo: Bolton exposé makes Trump figure of mockery MORE’s presidential campaign is launching its first advertising blitz of the general election — a $15 million dollar television, digital, radio and print effort that will focus on six swing states President Trump
Donald John TrumpLincoln Project launches new ad hitting Trump over China policies Trump criticizes Bolton as memoir excerpts offer scathing account of White House Bolton book portrays ‘stunningly uninformed’ Trump MORE carried in 2016.
The presumptive Democratic nominee is putting up ads for five weeks in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as well as on national cable outlets, including Fox News, a favorite of the president.
The blitz will also seek to shore up support among black and Hispanic voters. The campaign is making a six-figure investment in African American print, radio and targeted digital programming across the six states to commemorate Juneteenth and is also placing Spanish-language content across Florida and in Arizona.
The ads pull from Biden’s speech this month in Philadelphia after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
“The ads feature Biden in his own voice. A voice of clarity and moral authority that the country desperately needs,” said Patrick Bonsignore, the Biden campaign’s director of paid media. “The audio is pulled from his searing address on this moment in history from Philadelphia, the birthplace of our nation. It was an address that Donald Trump could never give.”
The ads will be anchored around three ads that seek to cast Biden as a unifier and an advocate for the middle class.
“I know so many Americans are suffering, suffering the loss of a loved one, suffering economic hardship,” Biden says in one ad titled “Unite Us.” “The country is crying out for leadership, leadership that can unite us, leadership that can bring us together. That’s what the presidency is — the duty to care, to care for all of us, not just those who vote for us, but all of us.”
“The moment has come to deal with the denial of the promise of this nation made to so many. Because if it weren’t clear before, it’s clear now — this country wasn’t built by Wall Street bankers and CEOs, it was built by the great American middle class,” he adds in “My Commitment.” “Health care workers, docs, nurses, delivery truck drivers, grocery store workers, we’ve come up with a new phrase for them: essential workers.”
The ads do not mention Trump by name but include images of the president holding a Bible for a photo op in front of a church near the White House after clearing a peaceful group of protesters this month and makes reference to his controversial remarks after the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., that erupted in deadly violence in 2017.
The Biden campaign said in a press release the ads underscore “the positive case for Joe Biden and reflect a campaign-wide strategy that sets out to create multiple pathways to 270 electoral votes with an expansive map, highlighting states like Arizona and North Carolina.”
The ad blitz is the first major effort since the Biden campaign announced the campaign and the Democratic National Committee raised nearly $81 million in May, a sign Biden’s financial situation is improving. The former vice president has also expanded his leads in national polls and surveys in key swing states.
However, he will still be advertising against a financial behemoth in the form of Trump’s reelection campaign. The president’s team began advertising earlier this year with a $22.7 million campaign and has advertised in all six states Biden is targeting as well as Iowa and Ohio, according to data from Advertising Analytics that was obtained by The New York Times.
