Wausau mother featured in Joe Biden ads during Emmys
Margaret Pagoria says she's been thinking a lot during the coronavirus pandemic about “precious time lost.”
Pagoria, a Wausau mother, said she went six months without seeing her parents. She also worries about the time her four children are losing when it comes to in-person schooling and social activities.
“The handling of this has been so terrible,” Pagoria said of COVID-19 in an interview with the Journal Sentinel.
“I just feel like our kids are sort of in this position of survive instead of thrive.”
Pagoria, 40, is being featured in two new national ads for Joe Biden — one a 30-second spot and the other a one-minute ad — airing for the first time Sunday during the Emmy Awards.
“What's been really hard for us and many families is that there's just no end in sight. A lack of plan from the federal level has boiled all the way down now to the shoulders of households across the country,” she says in one of the ads. “It just feels like a cost that never had to happen. I want to know that we have a president who has a plan during COVID for education, and after COVID, so we can get normal life back on track.”
In an interview, Pagoria said she realizes that the presidential campaign is deeply contentious, but thinks that people can unite around concerns for the effect the pandemic is having on children.
“How are we going to keep our kids on track?” she said.
“No matter where you stand, we all know how important these years are and academically, socially, athletically, artistically.”
Pagoria said that she and her husband, who's a physician, opted to stick with virtual schooling for now to avoid the uncertainty and possible outbreaks that could arise from sending their children — ages, 12, 9, 6 and 4 — to school in-person this fall.
But she noted that some families face extremely difficult choices, and raised concerns about disparities and children of lower-income families falling behind.
“There just needs to be some leadership, and there needs to be a plan,” she said.
Wisconsin Republicans accused Biden of politicizing “a national crisis.”
“Unfortunately, Democrats see spreading misinformation about the pandemic response as a campaign issue, so instead of putting country first, Democrats continue to politicize a national crisis and put politics above country,” said Andrew Hitt, chair of the Republican Party of Wisconsin.