Joe hits the campaign trail fired by passionate speech
President Biden hit the campaign trail on Friday a day after his impassioned State of the Union speech drew a flood of cash from supporters.
The president headed to suburban Philadelphia and planned to jet to battleground Georgia on Saturday to press his attacks on former President Donald Trump as both men focused on their epic White House rematch.
Along with the barnstorming trips, Biden’s campaign will splurge on a six-week $30 million video and digital ad campaign building on the themes of his annual speech, which aides described as a call to activate the Democratic base in order to take on Trump.
The ad buy comes a day after Biden raised a gusher of campaign cash while he energetically delivered a series of zingers in the speech to Congress.
The campaign said Biden’s speech drove a large spike in contributions, according to Axios, citing a campaign official.
Trump and the Republicans are trailing in the money race for now, but but the ex-president and his allies are aggressively pushing back against Biden.
A Super PAC backing the Trump has released an ad slamming the 81-year-old president over his age. “If Biden wins, can he even survive till 2029?” the ad asked.
The Biden ads will draw a “full-throated” contrast between the president’s optimistic vision of America’s comeback and Trump’s “dangerous and chaotic vision,” Biden campaign communications chief Michael Tayfor told reporters.
The Biden campaign plans to aggressively spend on Black, Latino and Asian media in an effort to swing those pillars of the Democratic base behind his reelection bid.
The Biden team also plans to use the upcoming March Madness college basketball tournament to reach young people who have not yet tuned into the looming presidential campaign.
The president will appear in New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Michigan next week, and Vice President Kamala Harris will head to Arizona and Nevada as part of a so-called “month of action” to launch the campaign in earnest.
By April 1, the Biden campaign expects to more than triple its staffing, including opening 100 field offices, in seven battleground states that will likely pick the next president.
The campaign believes it was handed a big advantage by the timing of the State of the Union just a day after Trump effectively wrapped up the GOP nomination and Nikki Haley dropped out of the race.
Despite a string of negative polls and questions about Biden’s age, Democratic strategists are confident that Trump is their own best weapon, arguing the former president is incapable of winning over independents and swing voters that decide American presidential elections.
“[Trump] has got to expand his base of voters to find new people to be with him and that is not something that he’s shown that he’s really focused on,” Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said.