IT BEGINS

Biden Campaign Preps Offensive Against Trump ‘Death Star’

Biden’s campaign will spend time in key states including Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin.

Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden will launch a massive, multimillion-dollar paid media blitz intended to help him win the pre-November messaging push against President Donald Trump.

The investment, $280 million in combined television and digital ad spending across 15 states, comes “on the heels of some immense growth for the campaign,” campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon told reporters during a briefing call on Tuesday evening, citing a “very strong reservation” and “one that is on offense.” 

The breakdown includes $220 million for television and $60 million for digital advertisements. 

“Most of the advertising has the vice president speaking,” said chief strategist Mike Donilon, referencing the primarily 60-second spots intended to allow viewers to engage visually with Biden for longer periods of time. “We think it’s important to see him and hear him.” 

Less than 100 days out from the general election, the Biden campaign has budgeted for ad spending in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin, according to a briefing document shared with press during the call. 

The planned investment comes as the Trump campaign operation—referred to by former campaign manager Brad Parscale as the “Death Star”—is spending some of its own cash on new ads, set to launch on Fox News in the liberal Washington, D.C. area, that appear to be aimed more at building up the president, himself, than generating support in more competitive parts of the country. 

Top advisers to Biden believe their expenditure, which includes spending significant resources in constituencies that make up the so-called “Biden coalition”—African-American, Latino, and Asian-Americans and Pacific Islander communities, as well as young and older voters—is crucial to help the former vice president bag the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House through a variety of geographic scenarios.  

“Oftentimes we hear so much how campaigns wait until six to eight weeks out from election day to start communicating to African-American and Latino voters, but we have been clear that African-American and Latino voters are key parts of our general election strategy, and what we’re presenting to you today underscores that commitment,” said Symone Sanders, a senior adviser to Biden, noting that the campaign first launched paid media plans targeting those key communities in mid-June. As part of their planned rollout, they are going up on BET, TV1, Bounce, and OWN, along with several digital and radio channels. 

Cristóbal Alex, another senior Biden adviser, said the campaign will release English and Spanish ads in several battlegrounds, citing an “unprecedented investment” over the next three months. “Eight figures into reaching Latino voters where they are,” Alex said of the planned expenses. The majority of Latino-specific resources will be spent in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, and Virginia, with additional investments to come in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, he said. 

As part of their ongoing efforts to target young and older populations, officials said that they also intend to “scale up” their ads on primarily digital platforms during more hyped campaign events, such as the general election debates against Trump.

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Hanna TrudoPolitics Reporter

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