First look: Biden's super PAC joins fall advertising fray
- Hans Nichols, author of Axios Sneak Peek
The super PAC backing President Biden is launching a joint $13 million national advertising campaign with a progressive climate group to convince voters that Bidenomics is working for them.
Why it matters: After a summer of selling his economic and environmental packages, team Biden knows that it has more work to do to convince a skeptical public that the economy is in good shape.
- The ad buy — focused on swing states and key demographics — will complement the official Biden campaign's plan to use the NFL season opener Thursday to launch its $25 million fall campaign.
- Even with robust job growth, the public remains unconvinced about Biden's economic record, with 58% of voters saying the economy has gotten worse over the past two years, according to a Wall Street Journal survey released this week.
Between the lines: The double-barreled approach — from the Biden campaign and allied groups — reveals an inherent advantage the incumbent president has at this stage of the campaign cycle.
- Biden and his allies can go on offense while Republicans are mostly knifing each other — or, in the case of Trump, paying legal bills.
- Trump's leadership PAC, Save America, spent more than $36 million on legal fees for Trump's aides and his associates between Jan. 1 of 2021 and June 30 of this year, the Wall Street Journal reported from FEC data.
Driving the news: Future Forward USA Action, a super PAC for Biden, and Climate Power, a progressive environmental group, are spending the $13 million on a combination of broadcast, cable and digital advertising.
- "Thanks to Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, we'll be doubling the number of jobs in the next month or so," says a narrator on the factory floor of a battery facility in one of the ads.
- The new campaign expands, by several million dollars, on the $20 million campaign the groups started last spring.
What they're saying: "The American people deserve the right to know what is happening and how it will impact their lives," said Chauncey McLean, president of Future Forward USA Action.
- "This campaign reaches key audiences on their TV and digital screens to highlight the Biden administration's record of job growth, a manufacturing renaissance, a clean energy boom and reforms that lower costs."