Biden launches first general election TV ad blitz, $15 million targeting six key battleground states

Former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign announced Thursday its first television ad buy of the general election, a $15 million, five-week blitz that will target six key battleground states that President Trump won in 2016: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, Florida, and Arizona.

The new buy includes two new English language ads that feature Biden’s speech earlier this month in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, and utilizes footage of peaceful protesters being cleared out of Lafayette Square in front of the White House so President Trump could walk across the street for a photo op in front of St. John’s Church.

“The country is crying out for leadership. Leadership that can unite us, leadership that brings us together,” Biden says in an ad entitled “Unite Us.”

“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,” he continues.

In addition, the campaign will feature Spanish-language content in both Florida and Arizona, which the campaign considers a “significant move” at this point in the campaign that “reflects the thoughtfulness and seriousness of the campaign’s outreach to the Latino community,” according to a release announcing the ad buy.

The campaign is working to revamp its team to reach communities of color, in particular Latinos, a group Biden struggled to court throughout the Democratic primary.

The campaign is also making a “six-figure investment” in African American media, set to begin on Friday, “when the nation commemorates Juneteenth,” a holiday commemorating the day when the last people who were still enslaved were told they were freed, and the day before President Trump is set to hold a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, his first since the pandemic shut down the campaign trail.

In their release announcing the blitz, the campaign touted the positive nature of their ads, hoping that the spots, which are narrated by Biden and make no direct mention of President Trump, will help secure “multiple pathways” to 270 electoral votes in November.

“The ads feature Biden in his own voice. A voice of clarity and moral authority that the country desperately needs,” Patrick Bonsignore, the Director of Paid Media for the Biden campaign, said. “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 new push also comes after the Biden team posted its best fundraising month of the campaign, raising $80.8 million in May and expanding its capability to compete with Trump’s well-stocked re-election force.

“We’re playing offense. We’re building a big, broad coalition. And we’re running straight through Trump '16 states to win every vote,” Biden’s campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon tweeted Thursday morning.