Joe Biden campaign launches Florida-only TV commercial on COVID-19
Screen shot from Joe Biden campaign TV commercial "Jerry."

Jerry
Jerry from The Villages calls Trump's response 'extremely frightening.'

Joe Biden‘s presidential campaign is launching a new Florida-only TV commercial Thursday using a resident of The Villages to express frustration over President Donald Trump‘s handling of the coronavirus crisis.

The new ad, “Jerry,” a 30-second spot, features a The Villages resident declaring “COVID-19 is extremely frightening. I’m in that group that’s vulnerable. And to watch the ineptness of the administration, which has really done nothing to date, they do not have a plan.”

As he speaks, all too familiar video clips appear of the year of the coronavirus crisis: ambulances, gowned nurses in a crowded emergency room, Jerry masking up, a map showing the spread of cases across the country. That’s followed by a series of clips of some of Trump’s less-than flattering moments.

Jerry — the Biden campaign would not release his full name — continues, offering Biden as a contrast.

“So I ask myself three things: Who can do something about COVID? Who can do something about prescription drug costs? Who can bring us back together again?” he says.

Then come the pictures of Biden and vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris looking victorious in masks, and of Biden meeting with seniors, including hugs in apparent pre-coronavirus days.

“Joe Biden is the answer to all three of those questions,” Jerry says.

The ad is airing statewide.

The Biden campaign also announced it has adapted his speech from Tuesday in Pittsburgh into a 60-second TV commercial that will begin airing nationwide on cable channels and on broadcast TV in Florida and other battleground states. Be Not Afraid uses Biden’s remarks to try to express his charges that Trump has fanned the flames of division, that he has failed to unequivocally condemn the violence in American cities, and that he has instilled fear throughout the country.

Both are part of a $45 million broadcast and digital buy for this week, the campaign reported.

Scott Powers

Scott Powers is an Orlando-based political journalist with 30+ years’ experience, mostly at newspapers such as the Orlando Sentinel and the Columbus Dispatch. He covers local, state and federal politics and space news across much of Central Florida. His career earned numerous journalism awards for stories ranging from the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster to presidential elections to misplaced nuclear waste. He and his wife Connie have three grown children. Besides them, he’s into mystery and suspense books and movies, rock, blues, basketball, baseball, writing unpublished novels, and being amused. Email him at [email protected].


One comment

  • Sonja Fitch

    September 2, 2020 at 2:47 pm

    Good! Biden will plan ,implement the plan and evaluate the plan with facts and the truth. Trump is a failure! Trump only distracts cause his boy toy Putin is trying to step in again and hack our elections! Law and order bs is just Trump racism by abusing our law enforcement! Vote Blue!

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