Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Biden campaign debuts second ad featuring a Villages supporter
The Biden campaign Tuesday launched a second ad featuring a supporter in the heavily Republican senior community of The Villages north of Orlando.
The new ad, “Jerry,” is scheduled to run statewide across Florida.
“COVID-19,” says the Villages resident, identified only as Jerry, as he covers his face with a mask. “It’s extremely frightening. I’m in that group that’s vulnerable.”
He criticizes what he calls “the ineptness of the administration, which has really done nothing to this date, they do not have a plan.”
The man says Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is someone who can “do something about COVID … do something about prescription drug costs, and who can bring us back together again.”
The ad is the second Biden ad featuring a Villages supporter, following “Donna,” which was released early last month. That ad only aired in the Tampa and Orlando markets.
It’s also the fourth ad directly targeted at seniors, following “Dignity,” which includes scenes of seniors alongside a video of a Biden speech, and “Swing,” which attacks Trump for having “stepped off the golf course and signed an executive action directing funding cuts for Social Security,” referring to the president’s order to defer the payroll tax that pays for the program.
Florida is once again a key swing state in the general election on Nov. 3, and Biden seeks to cut into Trump’s 39-percentage-point margin over Hillary Clinton in 2016 in Sumter County, one of the three counties where the sprawling Villages community is located.
Trump also won the other two counties, Lake and Marion counties, by 23 and 26 points, respectively.
Villages Democrats have become more vocal in 2020, with one anti-Trump rally making national headlines after a Trump supporter drove by on a golf cart and yelled, “White power.” Trump retweeted a video of that, then deleted it.