On Wednesday, the Biden-Harris reelection campaign launched a new ad focused on the economy featuring a Phoenix carpenter. It's part of a $25 million national media buy aimed at touting the president’s signature achievements in office. The ad will run in Arizona on local news and across the country on cable TV, according to the Biden for President campaign.
Biden was in Tempe on Thursday to speak about threats to democracy and announce a new library to house the archives of U.S. Sen. John McCain, who died in 2018.
With Arizona’s 11 electoral votes called a toss-up by The Cook Political Report and the Valley considered the key swing area in the state, the president’s focus on Phoenix is no surprise.
In the 2020 presidential election, Arizona was won by a Democrat for the second time since 1948, due partly to changing demographics in the growing Phoenix area. It was a crushing blow to former President Donald Trump’s chances of being reelected.
‘I’ve never seen it this good’
The ad released on Wednesday focuses on Valley carpenter Bill Ruiz and Biden’s efforts to strengthen the middle class, rebuild infrastructure and invest in manufacturing. In the ad, Ruiz said he became a union carpenter like his father, along with his sons following him into the family profession. “Thirty-six years in the field, and I’ve never seen it this good,” Ruiz said, attributing the change to the infrastructure and chip manufacturing bills passed with bipartisan support in Congress and signed by Biden. “There are people I know getting hired right now because of the laws that Joe Biden got passed.”
The ad buy will target large general election audiences on programming such as “Bachelor in Paradise,” NFL games and local news broadcasts in battleground states over the next 16 weeks, according to the campaign. Biden launched his first Arizona-specific ads in September, according to the Arizona Mirror.
“For years, MAGA Republicans have talked a big game about fighting for the middle class and bringing jobs back,” Julie Chávez Rodriguez, campaign manager for Biden for President, told Phoenix New Times. “While they failed to deliver on those promises, President Biden’s agenda has delivered a manufacturing boom that is making a real, tangible difference for people like Bill.”
The new ad was released just a day after all Democrats in the U.S. House joined eight rogue Republicans to oust Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy from office, plunging the GOP into chaos. Two of the eight Republicans who voted for McCarthy’s removal were Arizona Reps. Andy Biggs and Eli Crane.
Republicans running for their party’s presidential nomination are struggling to catch up to Trump in polling, despite him facing four separate indictments in New York, Washington, Florida and Georgia.
Biden and Democrats face a different challenge in the upcoming election. Though Democrats continue to back Biden’s reelection campaign, some members of his party and voters have concerns about his age. Biden would be 81 at the start of his second term.
