Great American comeback or fresh start: Donald Trump, Joe Biden release dueling Florida ads
Screen shots from TV commercials for Donald Trump, left, and Joe Biden, right.

Donald Trump and Joe and Jill Biden
Trump's ad shows Biden taking the nation backward, while Biden's highlights Trump's division.

The campaigns for Donald Trump and Joe Biden are releasing new TV commercials in Florida and other swing states outlining stark differences of opinion about what’s going on in America’s economy now and who can lead to a better tomorrow

Trump’s 30-second spot “Great American Comeback” touts the 1.4 million new jobs created in August as evidence that the President has turned things around from the economic collapse brought on by the coronavirus crisis. The commercial contends Biden wants to go back to economic shutdowns seen this spring, charging that he’ll destroy businesses and cost jobs.

Biden’s 60-second spot “Fresh Start” charges Trump has failed to address the coronavirus crisis and other issues including the racial unrest. It declares “We’ve had four years of a President who brings out the worst in America.”

Trump’s “Great American Comeback” is launching this week on local broadcast television in Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, and nationally on cable TV.

That commercial begins upbeat, with images of vials labeled “COVID-19 Coronavirus Vaccine,” stores opening, happy workers, a teacher and a student in masks, a construction crane rising, and lights coming on.

“In the race for a vaccine, the finish line is approaching,” declares the narrator. “Safety protocols in place. And the greatest economy the world has ever seen coming back to life.

“But,” the narrator warns as the commercial suddenly turns foreboding, “Joe Biden wants to change that.”

“I would shut it down,” Biden declares in a clip from an interview.

Suddenly, the people all look despondent, and business lights start turning off. “Why would we ever let Biden kill countless American businesses, jobs and our economic future when President Trump’s great American comeback is now underway?”

Biden’s “Fresh Start” is launching this week on both digital and broadcast networks, playing on local TV in Florida, Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and nationally on cable TV. Biden’s campaign says the spot is part of a $47 million campaign advertising buy this week.

“This is our chance to put the darkness of the past four years behind us, to end the anger, the insults, the division, the violence,” begins a narrator, as images flicker across showing the White House and Trump, followed by disturbing clashes in the streets between demonstrators and police, and of White nationalists marching.

“Start fresh in America,” the narrator continues, as the video shows Biden and former Second Lady Jill Biden, in masks, and then Biden and vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris. “We can stop focusing on a President who thinks it’s all about him and start focusing on what’s best for us.”

The narrator then contends Trump failed to get control over the virus but Biden will do it. The narrator assures voters Biden will help working families, reward work, and “make the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share.” He promises Biden will take care of health care by reducing costs while still protecting those with preexisting conditions, and that the former Vice President will “take on climate change and protect Social Security and Medicare.”

Ending with a few less flattering images of Trump and more rioting, the narrator concludes, “We’ve had four years of a President that brings out the worst in America. Isn’t it time we had a President who brought out the best?”

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].


2 comments

  • S.B. ANTHONY

    September 8, 2020 at 10:56 am

    The Great American Grifter with the orange hair and make-up is hawking
    his snake oil again. Don’t fall for it a second time.

    He failed America the first time around. Why give him a second chance to make
    things worse than they already are?

  • Sonja Fitch

    September 8, 2020 at 1:57 pm

    What a relief to hear the Biden ads! Not only does he say it but Biden has done the best possible for common good! Enough of the pathetic paranoid delusional racist sexist liar traitor Trump! Trump is a Fing failure! VoteBlue!

Comments are closed.


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