With conversation around race becoming front and center ahead of the 2020 elections, both political parties have been making moves to attract Black voters to swing the tides in their favor.
Former vice president Joe Biden revealed his new national advertisement directly aimed at Black American voters titled “Better America,” a one-minute video confronting the questionable actions of the current president without mentioning him by name while paying homage to prominent figures in Black history including U.S. Rep John Lewis and Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman to be elected to Congress. It also highlights the current protests over the deaths of George Floyd and others due to police brutality and the call for racial injustice to end.
“We must choose to fight for that better America,” the narrator says in the video. “And just like our ancestors who stood up to the violent racists of a generation ago, we will stand up to this president and say, ‘No more,’ because America is better than him. So we choose to be bigger. We choose to be bolder. We choose to bring back justice, respect, and dignity to this country. We choose Joe Biden to lead us all toward that American promise together.”
The video is a part of Biden’s $280 million digital and television ad buy that is scheduled to run through the fall.
“Our robust paid media strategy, which will include the largest general election investment in African American paid media by a presidential campaign, will allow us to disseminate Vice President Biden’s policy proposals and targeted initiatives that speak directly to Black communities across the United States,” the Associated Press quoted a statement from the Biden campaign.
The ad will air in 15 Democratic and Republican states including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, Ohio, and Florida. Reps from the Biden campaign also confirmed that there will be a similar ad targeting Latino and Asian American voters in the coming weeks.