Former Vice President Joe Biden released his first televised presidential campaign advertisement in Iowa on Tuesday. The new ad, titled “Bones,” declares that the country faces a serious “threat” posed by the re-election of Donald Trump, and Biden is best poised to defeat Trump in 2020.
“We know in our bones this election is different. The stakes are higher, the threat more serious – we have to beat [President] Donald Trump,” a narrator says in the video. “And all the polls agree that Joe Biden is the strongest Democrat to do the job.”
The 60-second ad is part of a six-figure TV and digital ad buy in the Hawkeye state, reported CNN. It will kick off its run as Biden visits the state for his sixth time and air in the Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Sioux City, and Quad Cities markets. It will continue to air for the weeks following his trip to Iowa.
The television ad portrays Trump as an “erratic, vicious, bully” while contending that, as president, Biden would subsequently “restore the soul of the nation.” The message rings back to Biden’s campaign launch in which he officially announced his presidency by casting Trump in the same light.
Like Biden’s campaign kick-off video, the “Bones” video overlays the president with white pride events in Charlottesville, Virginia, where far-right protesters carrying tiki torches gathered and a Neo-Nazi ran over and killed a peaceful counter-protester.
“No one is more qualified,” the narrator continues. “For eight years, President [Barack] Obama and vice president Biden were an administration America could be proud of, our allies could trust, and our kids could look up to. Together, they worked to save the American economy, to pass the historic Affordable Care Act, protecting over 100 million Americans with preexisting conditions.”
Biden has long considered himself the most “qualified person” to take on Trump during the upcoming election cycle, and has continued to promote that message during his candidacy.
“I’ll be as straight with you as I can. I think I’m the most qualified person in the country to be president,” Biden said more than four months prior to entering the presidential race. “The issues we face as a country today are the issues that have been in my wheelhouse, that I’ve worked on my whole life.”
Biden has been polling as the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination since as far back as October 2018, before he even announced his bid for the presidency.
Biden has continued to maintain a consistent, albeit tightening, lead among his Democratic primary challengers. As “Bones” airs, he is ahead in the polls by more than 13 points on average to his nearest opponent, and up an average of 8 points over Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who has edged out the second place spot, in the Iowa presidential caucus.
“Now, Joe Biden is running for president with a plan for America’s future,” the ad continues. “To build on Obamacare, not scrap it, to make a record investment in America’s schools, to lead the world on climate, to rebuild our alliance, and most of all, to restore the soul of the nation battered by an erratic, vicious, bullying president.”
“Strong, steady, stable leadership,” the ad concludes. “Biden for president.”