Joe Biden to paint Trump as ‘unhinged’ felon in $50mn ad campaign

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US President Joe Biden will launch an assault on Donald Trump’s character in a $50mn ad campaign that paints his opponent as an “unhinged” felon intent on retribution.

The ad spend highlighting Trump’s criminal conviction in New York is a significant infusion of cash just over a week from the first presidential debate.

It will target voters in battleground states and includes what the Biden campaign described as its largest investment to date to reach Black, Latino, Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander voters. The campaign has sharpened its attacks on Trump since he was found guilty of 34 felony counts on May 30.

“The campaign is releasing a new ad that lays out the choice Americans will see on the debate stage on June 27 between President Biden, who is fighting for the American people every day, and convicted felon Donald Trump who is fighting for himself,” according to a statement from the Biden campaign.

The television ads will highlight Trump’s recent conviction and will seek to paint him as a “spiralling and unhinged man who will do anything for power, revenge, and retribution,” the campaign said.

Trump is leading Biden by 1.1 percentage points in national presidential polls, according to an average by political website Fivethirtyeight.com. Polls show that Trump has an edge in battleground states that will decide the election in November.

On June 27 Biden and Trump will participate in their first televised debate in Atlanta, the capitol of the crucial swing state of Georgia that Biden won in 2020 by just 11,779 votes.

Last month Trump became the first former American president to be convicted of a crime after a New York jury found him guilty of all 34 charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election by falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal.

Both campaigns are stepping up efforts to reach swing state voters as polls indicate a razor-thin contest heading into the summer.

Biden at the weekend raised more than $28mn in a Hollywood fundraiser, the biggest in the history of the Democratic party.

Biden built up a $70mn cash advantage in the early months of the year, but Trump has been fundraising frantically from Republican donors from Wall Street to Florida and Texas in an effort to help him return to the White House.