Ten days out from the first presidential debate in Atlanta, President Joe Biden’s campaign is continuing to signal that Trump’s convicted-felon status will become a central theme in the incumbent’s democracy-versus-chaos reelection pitch through Election Day.
“We see Donald Trump for who he is,” a narrator says in a new Biden–Harris campaign ad. “He’s been convicted of 34 felonies, found liable for sexual assault and he committed financial fraud.”
The ad is part of a $50 million paid media campaign announced Monday that will air in the month of June, and it serves as a clear indication that the incumbent’s campaign believes Trump’s legal troubles will play to the incumbent’s favor at the ballot box as he continues to fare poorly in battleground-state surveys. The president mentioned the verdict at a private fundraiser earlier this month but has largely avoided speaking at length about the verdict at public campaign events.
His campaign’s aggressive strategy will come as welcome news to some Democrats, who believe Trump’s convicted-felon status will help Biden win over on-the-fence voters. Others are urging more caution. Speaking with National Review days after the Manhattan jury verdict dropped, some House Democrats said Biden and other vulnerable down-ballot Democrats should think twice before talking incessantly about Trump’s hush-money-trial verdict on the campaign trail. “We don’t need to talk about that,” former House whip Jim Clyburn told NR earlier this month. “I think the public is speaking loud enough.”
“I haven’t really been talking about it,” added Representative Tom Suozzi (D., N.Y.), who won a closely watched special election for expelled representative George Santos’s seat earlier this year.
Trump is scheduled for sentencing on July 11, four days before the 2024 convention kicks off in Milwaukee. As Brittany Bernstein and I reported earlier this month, “Some Democratic operatives are characterizing the conviction as one small piece of a larger story about Trump’s unfitness for office, and warn that vulnerable incumbents should be wary of making the verdict a central theme on the trail. If campaigns are like movies, then the verdict should serve as one short scene in a broader story about the chaos that follows Trump everywhere he goes — not the main plot.”