Biden campaign’s new ad casts Trump reelection bid as quest for revenge

Former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden (Getty Images)

As the candidates for president prepare for next month’s debate, President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign is launching a new ad Friday focused on the aftermath of the 2020 election, and portraying presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump as a candidate driven by a desire to regain power.

First viewed by the Capital-Star ahead of its release, the ad includes a voiceover by actor Robert DeNiro, with images of Trump during his presidency, and following his November loss, up to and including the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

“From midnight tweets to drinking bleach to tear-gassing citizens, and staging a photo op. We knew Trump was out of control when he was president,” the voiceover says. “Then he lost the 2020 election — and snapped.”

The new spot is part of the Biden campaign’s $14 million ad buy for May, and will go live on general market television in battleground states, and on national cable. The ad will appear on digital platforms across battleground states Friday.

“Donald Trump is obsessed with his own revenge and retribution, claiming there will be a ‘bloodbath’ if he loses and promising to be a dictator on ‘day one’ if he wins — even calling for the ‘termination’ of the Constitution,”  Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Biden-Harris campaign manager said in a statement to the Capital-Star. “This ad lays out the clear contrast voters will see a month from now when Trump stands on the debate stage next to Joe Biden: Trump is running to regain power for himself, Joe Biden is running to serve you, the American people.”

Biden and Trump are slated to face off in a debate in Atlanta June 27, to be broadcast on CNN with no studio audience in attendance. Biden told the Commission on Presidential Debates he would not agree to the three-debate schedule laid out earlier by the nonpartisan organization, which has been organizing presidential debates since the 1980s.  On that schedule, the first debate would not have been held until Sept. 16.

While Trump does not appear to have a significant campaign apparatus established in Pennsylvania yet, the Biden campaign has opened two dozen offices statewide, including in “red” areas like York and Lancaster. Biden has made seven appearances in Pennsylvania this year, including a weeklong sweep through Scranton, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia the week before the April 23 primary.

Trump has campaigned in Pennsylvania three times so far in 2024, including at a National Rifle Association event in Harrisburg, a surprise appearance at Sneaker Con in Philadelphia, and a rally in the Lehigh Valley. On Thursday, Trump, who is on trial in New York for allegedly covering up hush money payments in 2016, held a rally in the Bronx, traditionally a Democratic stronghold.

The Cook Political Report, a national ratings outlet, ranks Pennsylvania as one of  six “toss-up” states in the presidential race this cycle. Its 19 electoral votes are the most of any other state in that category.  A Philadelphia Inquirer/New York Times/Siena College poll released May 13 found Biden trailing Trump in five of six battleground states, including Pennsylvania, where 47% of voters polled said they would choose Trump, and 44% said they would vote for Biden.

In 2020, Biden beat Trump in Pennsylvania by just over 80,000 votes.

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