Joe Biden‘s campaign unveiled a new 60-second ad on Thursday, their first of 2024, that signals a primary campaign theme: Donald Trump‘s threat to the republic.
“There is something dangerous happening in America. There is an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs in our democracy,” Biden says in the spot.
The ad is part of a $500,000 ad buy that will run over the next week during local and national newscasts in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, according to the campaign. Shorter and more tailored versions will run on YouTube, Instagram and connected TV outlets.
Biden doesn’t mention Trump in the spot, but it’s heavy in images from January 6, 2021, when the then-president’s supporters stormed the Capitol. As such, the spot’s focus on Trump assumes that he will receive the Republican nomination. It’s probably a good bet. Trump is way ahead in the polls against Republican rivals, and even or bests Biden in some recent surveys of a repeat matchup between them.
Biden is scheduled to travel to Pennsylvania on Friday to give a speech near Valley Forge that is tied to the third anniversary of the January 6th attack on the Capitol. Vice President Kamala Harris is traveling to South Carolina this weekend, and the president plans to give a speech on Monday at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. That was the site of a mass shooting in 2015.
