President Joe Biden‘s reelection campaign announced a $14 million ad blitz on Wednesday targeting the handful of battleground states that will decide the November election.
Part of the multimillion-dollar ad buy includes a seven-figure investment that will go toward reaching black, Latino, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander voters.
The effort is another parcel of the Biden campaign’s increased aggressive tactics to reach voters as it hammers its fundraising advantage over former President Donald Trump‘s campaign and the Republican National Committee.
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“We kicked off the election year with a historic show of our grassroots strength, raised more than $187 million in the first quarter, breaking grassroots fundraising records month over month over month,” Biden communications director Michael Tyler said in a press call with reporters. “All that is to say we have a historic cash on hand that quite literally trumps our opponents.
“This fundraising advantage is allowing us to kick our campaign into high gear early. Making the investments today that will lead us to victory in November, leaving the Trump team with little time to catch up,” Tyler added.
Biden and the Democratic National Committee’s war chest, with $192 million cash on hand in March, is more than doubled what Trump and the RNC’s $93.1 million reserves, although Trump’s campaign told donors at a GOP retreat over the weekend it expects to raise more than $76 million, with more than half coming from small-dollar donors, in April.
The Biden campaign also released a new 30-second ad, “Terminate” attacking Trump’s attempts to over the Affordable Care Act and Biden’s efforts to protect healthcare as part of the $14 million investment.
The campaign targets ad placement during nontraditional opportunities such as major sports events and highly popular shows such as “Abbott Elementary.”
Wednesday’s announcement of the ad blitz is part of the next phase of the Biden campaign’s election strategy, including scaling its small business program in the battleground states, ramping up surrogate travel, and increasing Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’s communication with minority communities.
“Since March, our campaign has already held hundreds of organizing events online and in battleground states to mobilize a diverse base of the Democratic Party,” principal deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks said. “Many of these events have and will continue to focus on healthcare while Donald Trump is trying to rip away health insurance from millions of Americans, President Biden is lowering drug costs.”
Battleground states director Dan Kanninen, Fulks, and Tyler repeatedly blasted Trump for having little to no presence in the key states that will decide the next election.
“Doing this community building takes time, and unfortunately for the Trump campaign, time is running out. The Trump campaign still has virtually no presence in most of the battleground states,” Kanninen said. “If they decide to do any organizing work at all, they will almost certainly be forced to rely on expensive and last-minute tactics. with folks who have never set foot in the communities in which they’re knocking doors.”
The May effort comes after the Biden campaign announced a $30 million six-week paid media campaign in March, the same month Biden and Trump clinched their presidential nominations.
During the press call, campaign officials dismissed claims from the Trump campaign over the weekend that blue-leaning states Virginia and Minnesota are in play for the GOP.
“Looking at what the Trump campaign has done here is they’ve got the best poll they could buy,” Kanninen said. “And candidly, we don’t see polls that are six or seven months out from the general election, a head-to-head number, certainly as any more predictive than a weather report is six, seven months out before election.”
“We feel strongly the Biden-Harris coalition in both Minnesota and Virginia, which has been strong in the midterms and off-year elections, will continue to be strong for us,” Kanninen added.
On the $76 million Trump and the RNC said they raised in April, Tyler remained skeptical.
“We’ll see where that money actually came from and how much they raised when they file the report,” he said. “The Trump team doesn’t exactly have a well-established relationship with the truth first and foremost.”
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Monthly Federal Election Commission reports are not due until later this month, but the Trump campaign told the Washington Examiner on Monday it was seizing the momentum in higher fundraising totals.
“The momentum has long been on the side of President Trump, as evidenced by not only his record-shattering fundraising numbers but polling that shows him dominating in swing states across the country. We look forward to continuing to bring President Trump’s America First message across the country and transforming the excitement around his campaign into a historic victory on Nov. 5,” Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
