Biden launches new $50 million ad buy, calling Trump a "convicted criminal"
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Screen shot of new Biden ad
President Biden's campaign is running a new ad in every swing state, calling Donald Trump a "convicted criminal," as it tries to make Trump's character a central feature of the 2024 campaign.
Why it matters: Biden has clearly calculated that he can exploit Trump's criminal conviction for his political benefit — and his campaign is now pouring money into that strategy.
- The ad buy represents a big bet that voters will care about Trump's legal troubles — namely his criminal conviction in his hush money trial — when they make an either-or choice in the 2024 election.
- The ad is part of a $50 million June ad buy in swing states, targeting Black, Hispanic and Asian American voters.
- In 2020, those groups' overwhelming support for Biden helped propel him to the presidency, but there are warning signs that some of them have soured on Biden.
Driving the news: The ad uses scenes of Trump in court — and his mug shot from his criminal case in Georgia, where he's accused of trying to overturn the state's 2020 election results — to help frame the race ahead of the Biden-Trump debate on June 27.
- "Trump approaches the first debate as a convicted felon who continues to prove that he will do anything and harm anyone if it means more power and vengeance for Donald Trump," said Biden-Harris 2024 communications director Michael Tyler.
- "In the courtroom, we see Donald Trump for who he is," the ad's male narrator intones, over black-and-white images of Trump. "Has been convicted of 34 felonies and found liable for sexual assault."
- "Meanwhile, Joe Biden has been working," the narrator says, as the ad switches to color shots of Biden signing legislation and visiting factory floors.
Zoom in: Biden plans to use the CNN debate to challenge Trump in person, with attacks that he increasingly has been making on the campaign trail and in fundraisers.
- Friday night in Los Angeles, before a crowd of Hollywood's biggest names, he mocked Trump's approach to the pandemic. "He said just don't worry, just inject a little bleach," Biden said.
- For the next few days, Biden will be in debate prep. He has left much of the intense preparation for the last few days just before the showdown.
Zoom out: Top Biden officials are convinced that voters will gravitate toward Biden when they start to process the possibility of Trump returning to the White House.
- They also are trying to use their cash advantage, which the Trump campaign is starting to erase, to define Trump early in the summer.
- The overall goal is to capture voters' attention right when they begin to focus on the presidential race.
- The Biden campaign has been up since Labor Day with TV ads, but so far the ads don't appear to have had much impact in moving the public's perceptions of a tight race, according to surveys.
The other side: Trump, for his part. is doubling down on his effort to appeal to minority voters, telling a group of Detroit residents at a mostly Black church over the weekend that they are "being hurt" by illegal immigration.
- "They're invading your jobs," Trump said.
