Trump visits battleground Arizona while Biden ramps up digital campaign
The president and 2020 presumptive Democrat nominee show two contrasting campaign strategies; Peter Doocy reports.
President Trump’s reelection campaign confirms to Fox News that it’s going up with a whopping $10 million ad blitz targeting presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
The campaign said on Thursday that the ads will run on national cable television, broadcast TV and online and that they begin “starting now.”
IN FIRST MAJOR TV AD BLITZ, TRUMP CAMPAIGN TOUTS PRESIDENT'S JOB COMBATING CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC
In one of the commercials, the narrator charges that the former vice president “coddles China,” where the coronavirus pandemic originated.
“Joe Biden won’t stand up to China,” the ad declares. “He never has. He never will.”
The campaign posted a 60-second version of the ads on Twitter.
The Trump campaign’s been slamming Biden over China for the past couple of weeks, but this is the first time they’re spending big bucks to go up with a media blitz attacking the Democratic challenger. The top pro-Trump super PAC American First Action also is spending $10 million to currently run TV commercials in key battleground states targeting Biden as soft on China.
The push against Biden comes as the president and his conservative allies have raised the rhetoric against Beijing over the past two months and repeatedly blamed China for the spread of the coronavirus outbreak. Domestic polling indicates that an increasing number of Americans point fingers at China for the pandemic.
THE LATEST FROM FOX NEWS ON THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN
The new ad campaign is the second this general election by Trump’s cash-rich reelection team. Last week the campaign went up with TV and digital spots touting the president’s performance steering the federal government’s response to the coronavirus and his vow to restart America’s economy.
All these ads come as most, but not all, recent polling indicates that the president’s numbers on how he’s handling the coronavirus crisis are edging down – and most surveys also show him trailing Biden in national head-to-head general election matchups. More importantly, they give the former vice president the edge in the key battleground states.
Pro-Biden super PACs have been running ads for weeks in the crucial swing states that charge Trump downplayed the severity of the pandemic at first, and then botched the federal government’s response. And on Thursday, the Biden campaign went up with a new video on social media that stated “real presidents lead. Reality TV presidents don’t.”
The Biden campaign and its allies are also pushing back at Trump's China attacks by spotlighting clips of the president in January and February praising Beijing’s handling of the coronavirus.
“Everyone knew they lied about the virus. China. President Trump gave China his trust,” the narrator in a commercial by the pro-Biden outside group American Bridge spotlights.
The ad -- which the super PAC is spending $1 million to run in key battleground states -- then uses a video clip from Feb. 7 of the president saying of China, “I think they’re doing a very good job.”
Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale hinted at the new anti-Biden ads in a tweet earlier on Thursday.
“For nearly three years we have been building a juggernaut campaign (Death Star). It is firing on all cylinders. Data, Digital, TV, Political, Surrogates, Coalitions, etc. In a few days we start pressing FIRE for the first time,” he said.
“I didn’t give our campaign the name Death Star, the media did. However, I am happy to use the analogy. The fact is, we haven’t used it yet. Laugh all you want, we will take the win!” he added.
The Biden campaign’s rapid response director fired back on Twitter, showing a video from ‘Star Wars’ of the Death Star exploding.
Elections where incumbent presidents are running for a second term are usually referendums on that president’s record in office.
But the Trump campaign is trying to follow in the footsteps of the 2012 Obama reelection team and the pro-Obama SuperPAC Priorities USA, which were successful in going up in the spring and summer of 2012 with a blitz negatively portraying GOP nominee Mitt Romney, which likely contributed to Romney’s defeat that November.
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