Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Biden ads target South Florida
Joe Biden’s presidential campaign said Thursday it’s starting a big advertising campaign in Florida and other key states.
The effort is limited and targeted in South Florida, the state’s Democratic stronghold, a region where Biden is likely to perform well against President Donald Trump. In South Florida, Biden is running Spanish-language ads, plus print and digital ads focused on African American voters.
The ads in African American media start on Friday, which is Juneteenth, a day commemorating the end of slavery.
The Florida advertising is part of a $15 million effort spread across six battleground states that Trump won in 2016, the campaign said. The five weeks of spending — on TV, online, radio and in print — is the first major general election advertising from Biden.
The advertising also will appear nationally on Fox News — the president’s favorite channel and one that’s watched by many of his supporters.
The ads, “Unite Us,” and “My Commitment,” use audio from a speech Biden delivered this month about systemic racism and police misconduct in the context of the killing of George Floyd.
The advertising is also running in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina and Arizona. All are critical states in the Biden-Trump contest. Florida is the biggest battleground state, awarding 29 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.
The FiveThirtyEight.com Florida polling average on Friday showed Biden
ahead of Trump 49.7% to 42.8%, an advantage for the Democrat of 7 percentage points.
The Trump campaign has also been advertising in Florida. The Associated Press reported the president’s campaign spent $24 million on ads mainly in the six battleground states over the seven weeks from late April through the beginning of June.
According to a memo the Biden campaign gave to the New York Times, the advertising is aimed at trying to appeal to people who previously voted for former President Barack Obama then for Trump in 2016. In Florida that means Tampa, Orlando,
Jacksonville and the Panhandle.
The Spanish-language ads will have different narrators for different regions. Someone of Cuban descent was used for Miami and of Puerto Rican descent for Orlando.
In “Unite Us,” Biden says Americans are suffering and need leadership, promises to heal racial wounds — and shows Biden wearing a mask to prevent the spread of coronavirus, something Trump refuses to do.
“I’ll do my job and I will take responsibility. I won’t blame others,” Biden says.
In “My Commitment,” Biden talks about how the middle class, the importance of essential words and the need for people to care for each other. “That’s what the presidency is, the duty to care. To care for all of us. Not just those who vote for us. But all of us,” Biden says.
The Trump campaign said via email the Biden advertising effort wouldn’t be effective.
“No amount of money spent will change the fact that Joe Biden has taken for granted and ignored the Latin American community,” spokesman Andres Malave said. “Hispanic Americans are moving towards President Trump and away from Biden’s jobkilling agenda and failed foreign policy that props up tyrannical socialist regimes.”