Biden launches his first TV ad in Texas

Former Vice President Joe Biden has launched his first 60-second television and digital ad in Texas — one that sounds almost more like a public service announcement calling on Texans to wear masks to help fight the coronavirus.

The ad features 15 different people wearing masks at various points, including Biden himself at the end with the words “Stay safe, wear a mask” flashing across the screen.

“This virus is tough, but Texas is tougher,” Biden said.

Later he tells viewers to “wear a mask, wash your hands, stay home if you can.”

Details on where the ad is running and how often have not been made public, but it represents the first foray into Texas in the general election for Biden.

Biden has acknowledged he’s getting pushed by Democrats in Texas to invest more in campaigning here, convinced that close public polling suggests Texas could flip to Democrats in a presidential election for the first time since 1976.

“I think we have a real chance to turn the state blue because of the work all of you have done,” Biden said at the Texas Democrats virtual convention last month. “We’re building a diverse coalition to win up and down the ballot in the fall.”

But Texas, with 20 big television markets, is a huge and expensive state for any presidential campaign. Texas Democratic Party chairman Gilberto Hinojosa told the New York Times he was recently on a phone call with top Biden advisers and other Texas Democrats talking about the state of the race in Texas.

“Their hesitation is that it’s so big and there is no history of this state ever being in play like it is now,” Hinojosa said, conceding that the high costs of a state with 20 media markets make it “a scary proposition” for a national campaign.

Biden’s new Texas ad will also be adapted for use in Arizona, Florida and North Carolina. In all, the Biden campaign said the buys would be in the “mid-six figures” and would run in top markets and on local cable. There is also a version with captions in Spanish that is expected to play on YouTube, Facebook, and Univision.

The ad never mentions President Donald Trump directly.

Trump’s campaign officials scoffed at the idea that Biden may have a shot at turning Texas blue in 2020.

“Despite investing in a TV ad, the Democrats’ perpetual pipe dream of turning Texas blue is still out of reach,” said Samantha Cotten, Regional Communications Director for Trump Victory.

Cotten said the Trump campaign has been investing for years in Texas in preparation for 2020. That has included volunteer outreach programs and online training programs to help get out the vote in the fall.

Public polls have shown Texas is close. In a CBS News/YouGov poll of 1,212 registered Texas voters, Trump was the choice of 46 percent, while 45 percent were for Biden.

Trump has questioned the accuracy of those polls.

“I’m not one point up in Texas,” Trump said on Monday. “We’re many points up.”

Trump is scheduled to return to Texas for a fundraiser in Odessa later this month. Trump won Texas in 2020 by just over 800,000 votes — the narrowest vote margin for a Republican presidential candidate in Texas since 1996 when Republican Bob Dole won by just over 270,000 votes in Texas.

Texas has added 2.1 million more voters since about this time in 2016.