ProBiden forces prepare ad blitz to boost agenda
WASHINGTON — An array of progressive and proWhite House groups plans to spend nearly $100 million to promote President Biden’s agenda over the next month to pressure Congress while lawmakers are on their August recess.
The push announced Monday, coupled with a wave of travel by the president’s top surrogates, is meant to bolster and secure passage of Biden’s twotrack infrastructure plan: a bipartisan package focused on highways, transit and broadband, and a Democratsonly budget reconciliation bill for child care and what the White House calls human infrastructure.
Votes on both proposals, expected in the weeks ahead, are expected to be narrow, with Biden and Democratic leaders needing to keep in line a group of moderate Republicans for the nearly $1 trillion bipartisan bill as well as an ideologically diverse set of Democrats for the potentially $3.5 trillion reconciliation package.
An outside coalition of progressive organizations opened a war room and is planning to host over 1,000 events and actions over the next six weeks, the Associated Press learned. The goal, officials said, was to bombard the home districts of members of Congress with ads — both televised and digital — to keep the pressure on to follow through on their votes as well as to underscore much of the agenda’s popularity with the public.
The Senate voted to advance the bipartisan infrastructure bill last week, giving Biden a hardfought legislative victory. Both bills face debate and further votes in the weeks ahead.
“Progressive groups are going on the offense as we lead into August recess,” said Danielle Melfi, executive director of Build Back Together, an outside group supportive of the president. “We know there is a groundswell of support and we want to show members that while they are back home in their districts.”
Traditionally, August is the slowest month of the year in Washington, in part because Congress leaves town, so the White House aims to fill that vacuum with a blitz of events aimed at touting Biden’s first six months in office while also promising to take on rising fears of longterm inflation as well as a surge in coronavirus infections.
Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, will headline events and, in the first two weeks of August alone, 14 Cabinet secretaries will travel to at least 26 cities in 13 states, the White House said.