President Joe Biden launched a campaign ad Tuesday meant to address some of his biggest vulnerabilities among voters, especially higher healthcare and energy costs.
The TV ad “Never Left” touts policies Biden has advanced as easing financial strains for the public in his first term as president.
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The one-minute spot hits on programs Biden has enacted to spend on clean energy production and domestic manufacturing, including passage of the Inflation Reduction Act.
“He knows what life is like for working people and knows middle-class life is too expensive right now,” the narrator says of Biden. “That’s why he’s passing laws to lower costs.”
The TV spot is part of a 16-week, $25 million ad blitz his campaign launched in September, which seeks to play up Biden as a blue-collar advocate of policies that benefit low- and middle-class people.
It is slated to run on national cable channels and television stations in battleground states, his campaign said. It will also appear on broadcasts with high national viewership, including ABC’s Dancing with the Stars and during NFL programming.
The ad comes as Biden has struggled with a historic bout of inflation in his first term, undercutting his approval rating. Rising energy costs have caused him particular political problems. Gas prices soared to record highs following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Overall energy costs are up 37% since Biden took office, according to the consumer price index.
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Polls show Biden’s approval rating has been closely tied to these commodities prices. Biden’s presidential approval dipped to its lowest-ever point of 36% last July, after high oil costs underpinned by global demand and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pushed U.S. gas prices to a national average of more than $5 per gallon.
And after months of respite, oil prices are on the upswing once again. Futures for U.S.-based West Texas Intermediate briefly climbed above $95 per barrel last week, the highest point since August 2022, threatening higher gas prices at a time when costs usually cool ahead of the winter season.