New Biden Campaign Ad Focuses on Trump’s Felony Conviction in Effort To Make Character an Election Issue

President Biden’s campaign is launching a new ad highlighting President Trump’s status as a felon, an apparent effort to emphasize character as an issue for voters as a new national poll shows the negative impact of the GOP front-runner’s conviction by a New York jury.The new ad presents the upcoming election as a choice between Trump, depicted as a convicted criminal, and Mr. Biden, described as an advocate for working Americans.Trump’s conviction is emerging as an electoral handicap in new polls, especially in terms of swaying the opinion of independent voters against him, according to a new poll from Politico and Ipsos. The Politico poll surveyed 1,027 American residents across all 50 states between June 7 and June 9.Some 32 percent of Politico’s independent voter respondents reported that the conviction made them less likely to support Trump, with 22 percent saying that the conviction is important to how they will vote and will likely not vote for him.The Politico survey followed a poll taken by ABC News and Ipsos the week before that showed the conviction had a “minimal impact on public opinion.”Meanwhile, according to a Morning Consult poll conducted in January, before Trump’s trial was held, 46 percent of registered voters in key battleground states said they would be “very unwilling” to vote for Trump if he were to be convicted of a crime. The new Biden campaign ad, titled “Character Matters” is a part of a national $50 million ad-buy which begins to air just more than a week before the two candidates square off in this year’s presidential debate on June 27, the Associated Press reports.The ad opens with black and white shots of Trump in court, and is contrasted by colorful clips of Mr. Biden smiling, signing legislation, and shaking hands with construction workers.“In the courtroom we see Donald Trump for who he is,” the narrator says. “He’s been convicted of 34 felonies, found liable for sexual assault, and he committed financial fraud.”“Meanwhile, Joe Biden’s been working, lowering health care costs and making big corporations pay their fair share,” he adds.About 59 percent of Americans say they do not have full confidence that Trump will act ethically while in office, according to a recent report from the Pew Research Center.Trump continues to condemn the outcome of his trial at New York on May 31 as “unfair,” describing it as “a scam.”Just less than a third of Americans agree that Trump’s trial was unfair, with 32 percent of Politico’s poll respondents disagreeing that the former president had a fair and impartial trial. Another 43 percent of the Pew Research poll respondents believe that the prosecution was brought to help Mr. Biden, and 29 percent believe that he was directly involved in bringing forth the case.“Trump approaches the first debate as a convicted felon who continues to prove that he will do anything and harm anyone if it means more power and vengeance for Donald Trump,” said the Biden campaign’s communications director, Michael Tyler.Mr. Biden’s new campaign ad does not mention or criticize any of Trump’s intended policies while in office. Instead the ad appears to reflect a Biden campaign strategy to make character a key issue for voters.Just ahead of the release of the new ad, the first lady, Jill Biden, emphasized a gulf in character between the two major-party candidates to a crowd at Reno, Nevada, on Saturday, saying that “this election is about the character of the person leading our country.”

New Biden Campaign Ad Focuses on Trump’s Felony Conviction in Effort To Make Character an Election Issue

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