Joe Biden battleground state ad buy during NFL prime time game bypasses Florida viewers

A new TV ad from President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign is debuting as the prime time NFL season begins with the Detroit Lions taking on the 2023 Super Bowl-winning Kansas City Chiefs.

But according to the list of states where the advertisement will air as the pigskin flies, the President’s campaign is focusing less on Florida.

The 30-second advertisement, “Got to Work,” that will run during Thursday’s opening prime time game is part of a $25 million advertising campaign that will air on broadcast and network TV in the biggest media markets of seven “battleground” states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Florida voters can see the ad outside of the NFL game on national slots on CNN, daytime Fox News and MSNBC.

With 19 electoral votes, Pennsylvania comes the closest to matching the big prize Florida’s 30 electoral votes represents among the states the ad targets. Observers may recall 2022, when the lack of national Democratic investment was among the factors blamed for the blue team’s abysmal showing in Florida.

But state Democratic Party and Biden campaign officials dispute that the ad buy forecasts Democrats’ 2024 strategy in Florida. They point to Biden’s recent visit to Florida in the wake of Hurricane Idalia and a Spanish-language ad buy in Florida that dropped just before the first debate featuring candidates for the Republican nomination.

Still, little national investment proved either prophetic or causational in 2022 as no Democratic candidates were elected statewide. Gov. Ron DeSantis was re-elected by the largest margin of any Governor in modern state history, and Republicans swept to a supermajority in both legislative chambers.

Deerfield Beach Democratic Club President Bernie Parness says he’s not worried about a repeat of 2022. Florida Democrats are more focused on the ballot questions about a woman’s right to choose and marijuana than drumming up excitement about particular candidates, he explained.

“It’s way, way too early to be spending lots of money here in Florida,” Parness said.

In 2020, Donald Trump won 51.2% of the Florida vote to Biden’s 47.9%, though Biden won the election without Florida. With DeSantis No. 2 in the polls among Republicans, the state’s voters might be in a unique position with their own Governor in the matchup against Biden.

This ad highlights decreasing inflation and unemployment with lilting classical-style music in the background as images show Biden at work and with constituents. It will air for 16 weeks after its NFL debut.

The ad, posted digitally eight days ago, evokes the underdog struggle the Detroit Lions have long endured.

“They said millions would lose their jobs and the economy would collapse,” the narrator intones. “But this President refused to let that happen. Instead, he got to work.”

After highlighting Biden’s efforts that fixed supply chains, fought corporate greed, passed laws to lower pharmaceuticals’ cost, cut utility bills and made the country energy -independent, the viewer hears the President’s voice that he approved this message.