The Biden campaign has drawn up a blitz of Thanksgiving Day advertisements in two key battleground states, airing a pair of TV spots during the Detroit Lions-Green Bay Packers NFL game this week.
Two ads highlighting President Joe Biden’s economic record will air during Thursday’s game in the Detroit and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, media markets, the campaign said in an announcement shared first with CNN.
It’s a move aimed at putting some points on the board with a general election audience, the campaign said, with the game “expected to reach 1.1 million adults over the age of 35 and 850,000 households in the Detroit market alone.”
As Republicans duke it out in the primary, Biden’s campaign is looking down field to next November, and voters in Michigan and Wisconsin where these ads are running will be critical to Biden’s electoral map.
In Michigan, Biden defeated Trump by 2.8 percentage points in 2020 while in Wisconsin, Biden won by a narrower margin – .6 percentage points.
But polling released earlier this month indicates Biden’s support could be slipping in those midwestern swing states. In a New York Times–Siena College poll of Michigan voters, 43% chose Biden, compared to 48% for Trump. In Wisconsin, Biden narrowly edged out Trump, 47% to 45%.
The Thanksgiving Day ad placement is part of the campaign’s $25 million ad buy announced in August and marks its latest play to reach battleground state voters during football games.
One of the ads discusses Biden’s middle-class upbringing in Scranton, Pennsylvania, making an argument that acknowledges ongoing economic strain. The ad, titled “Never Left” points to the president’s work to bring down costs on drug pricing, scale back health insurance premiums, and invest in clean energy to lower power costs. Another ad, titled “Finally,” highlights the administration’s efforts to lower prescription drug costs.
Biden, the narrator says in one ad, “knows what life is like for working people. And knows middle class life is too expensive right now.”
“For Joe Biden, it’s about restoring the sense of security working people deserve. That simple promise. That peace of mind. He’s determined to get it back – because of where he’s from and who he is,” the narrator says.
“This Thanksgiving as Americans come together, we are proud to highlight how President Biden and Vice President Harris are focused on the issues that matter most to American families and delivering real tangible results that are lowering costs for everyday Americans,” said Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez.
The Biden team kicked off this effort in September by running TV ads during the NFL season opener between the Detroit Lions and Kansas City Chiefs. Those ads ran in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
In all, the Biden campaign has made more than 90 ad placements around NFL and college football programing totaling more than $1.17 million dollars, a campaign official says.
That has included an ad hitting former President Donald Trump on manufacturing during a Chicago Bears-Carolina Panthers game earlier this month as well as a veterans-focused ad during a Penn State football game and Packers-Pittsburgh Steelers game on Veterans Day.
The campaign also ran an ad targeting Black voters during a Colorado-USC football game in September. The campaign has also looked to appeal to Latino voters through a “Spanglish” ad that aired during a September Sunday Night Football game between the Miami Dolphins and the New England Patriots.
The campaign has sought to use these highly watched television events to push their campaign message to a politically diverse audience. The campaign has pointed to data from Nielsen Prime Lingo showing 47% of presidential election voters saying they watched a Lions game on TV in the last 12 months, including 50% of Democrats, 53% of Republican and 43% of independents.
The ads that will run during this week’s Lions-Packers game come as the campaign hopes to change the minds of voters who feel the president is fumbling his handling of the economy.
A new NBC News poll found only 38% of voters on the national level approve of Biden’s handling of the economy. A recent New York Times/Sienna College poll conducted last month found 52% of registered voters in key swing states had a poor view of the economy.
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