President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign is shelling out $25 million for a four-months-long ad campaign in battleground states as national polling has shown him neck-and-neck with former President Donald Trump.
CNN first reported on the television and digital ad blitz on Sunday, which will include prominent buys centered around the National Football League’s opening weekend in September and the World Series in October. CNN linked to the first video in the series called “Fight Back.”
The video touts legislation the Biden White House has married to the term “Bidenomics,” such as the Inflation Reduction Act — which does not actually reduce inflation, the so-called Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the CHIPS and Sciences Act. Notably, vulnerable Democrats in swing districts have steered clear of the term “Bidenomics.”
“Today, unemployment is at record lows. Our economy, leading the world,” the narrator states. “Joe Biden passed historic laws to rebuild the country, but he knows it’s the American people who are the heroes of this story.”
It also takes aim at Trump, the leading Republican presidential candidate.
“There are some who say America is failing, not Joe Biden.” the narrator says, accompanied by a video of Trump. “He believes our best days are ahead.”
The video and others to come will air in Wisconsin, Georgia, and Arizona — which Biden only won by a combined 43,673 votes in 2020 — as well as Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.
“This historic buy ensures that the President’s message reaches all Americans where they receive their news, and sends a clear sign that we are investing in an aggressive, meaningful, and effective paid media strategy,” said Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez, touting that the blitz comes days ahead of the first Republican presidential debate.
While Biden looks to make an impact in critical swing states, Real Clear Politics’ polling average shows he holds less than half a percent lead over Trump in a hypothetical head-to-head match-up in the 2024 general election in national polling. Biden’s average registered at 44.4 percent, and Trump’s sits at 44 percent.
An Emerson College Polling survey released Saturday showed Trump with a razor-thin .7 percent advantage over Biden, but they tied at 44 percent for rounding purposes. When Green Party presidential candidate Cornell West was added into the fray as a third-party candidate, he took five percent, while Trump led Biden 42 percent to 41 percent.