President Joe BidenTrump’s campaign had been subdued for weeks in its attacks on Donald Trump’s criminal conviction in New York, until internal polling and focus groups showed the verdict turned off voters.
The result, which appeared on TV screens across the country on Monday, was the launch of the sharpest attack ad yet, portraying Trump as a “convicted criminal who is only out for himself.” And the campaign says this is just the beginning. Biden advisers say they plan to pressure Trump in the coming weeks — with the aim of both building a favorable narrative ahead of next week’s debate and keeping Trump’s conviction top of mind among voters still are not fully attuned to the elections.
“We’ve seen in polling since the belief that the more the belief is at the center of voters’ attention, the worse it is for Trump,” said a Biden campaign pollster who granted anonymity to describe internal polls because they were not authorized to do so. so public.
The pollster said their research concluded that Trump’s beliefs could be used effectively in a broader portrayal of Trump as self-centered and unwilling to take responsibility for his actions.
“Trump has dug his own hole deeper in condemnation,” the pollster said, “and we see him paying the price for it in the polls.”
The shift in Biden’s approach is significant, coming just before the first debate and after some Democrats criticized the campaign for not doing more to capitalize on Trump’s beliefs.
Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) applauded the ad’s sharper tone and Biden’s recent comments, saying she was “pleased to see the campaign intensify the contrast between Biden and Trump” as “this election goes far beyond policy . about the basic principles that all Americans can understand – whether you respect the law and whether you are a real public servant or not.”
Within the Biden campaign, officials cast the ad, part of a $50 million ad buy in June in battleground states, as part of an ongoing effort to frame the election around a character contrast between the two candidates. The convictions for Trump’s crime, they say, are evidence of their broader message that he is out for himself, a theme they have repeatedly touched on since Trump won the nomination earlier this spring. They also pointed to the second half of the ad, in which they contrasted Biden as “working” for voters to lower health care costs.
“It all comes down to the damage he’s going to do to people because he’s paying attention and fighting for one person, and that’s Donald Trump,” Biden communications director Michael Tyler said. “That applies to the criminal convictions and that applies to everything he wants to do [in a second term] … That is the connective tissue that we build as we approach the debate.”
The Biden campaign’s internal research mirrors recent public polling showing Biden has regained some ground with voters in the wake of Trump’s trial in New York. A New York Times/Siena College poll showed Biden winning by 2 percentage points in a national poll, cutting Trump’s lead to 1 point. And a POLITICO/Ipsos poll found that 21 percent of independents said Trump’s beliefs made them less likely to support him and would be a major factor in how they decide to vote.
Testing how Trump’s beliefs would resonate with voters was virtually impossible until it happened, Biden campaign officials said, because voters’ preferences often change once an issue is no longer abstract. A second pollster for the Biden campaign, who was also granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly, noted that since “voters almost universally know this happened,” it is now important that the campaign “keep it in the bloodstream and not let it disappear from the eyes of the voters.” spirits.”
Trump was found guilty of falsifying business records in connection with a payoff to a porn star, and he faces a sentencing hearing on July 11.
The Trump campaign pushed back on the ad in a memo to reporters, arguing that it is “essentially re-admitting that Biden’s mock trials are about election interference.” The campaign shared a poll memo from Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio saying that “voters in our key target states have already made up their minds about this process. Most voters … believe the case is politically motivated.”
The Biden campaign’s strong stance on Trump’s conviction marks a shift from the immediate aftermath of the verdict.
Initially, Biden aides downplayed the political significance of the conviction, arguing that the electorate did not need to be reminded of Trump’s personal drama. They even emphasized that it could be counterproductive, trapping Biden on an issue that they didn’t think at the time would move voters.
But even then, Biden aides privately noted that they could always adjust their hands-off strategy if the ruling would be more damaging in the longer term.
In the days and weeks after the verdict, and as some Democrats pushed for a more aggressive reelection campaign, the Biden team slowly embraced a more direct line of attack. At a private fundraiser in Connecticut a few days after the guilty verdict, Biden called Trump a “convicted felon” who “got it.” Campaign workers began peppering social media posts with references to the conviction, and they began weaving the phrase “convicted felon” into official press releases.
Now even Democrats who had initially discouraged the president from directly addressing the outcome of the trial have found themselves polling in the wake of the verdict.
“What the polls clearly show is that there is a group of voters for whom the convictions matter and … it is the voters who are going to decide the election,” said Matt Bennett, co-founder of the center-left group Third Way. “Many of us were skeptical that this would happen. But I think it’s clear that these voters were shocked by the idea of a convicted felon becoming president. It’s a pretty powerful argument for undecided voters.”
Some Democrats worried that opening the door to attacks on Trump’s criminal conviction would also give Republicans reason to attack the president over his son, who was convicted in a gun case last week. But Democratic strategists dismissed that political risk as “minimal.”
“Hunter Biden is not running for president. Donald Trump does,” said Jim Demers, a New Hampshire-based Democratic strategist. Republicans have struggled to come up with a coherent strategy for reporting on the Hunter Biden verdict itself, making it potentially less powerful.
But even as Democrats have embraced the Biden campaign’s increased aggression toward Trump, some are unhappy that it is a response to the fact that he could be the first convicted felon to occupy the White House. Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) said Biden is simply doing what is “necessary.”
“Trump’s beliefs are something American voters need to understand. And the sad reality is that many don’t,” Moulton said in an interview. “If I wanted to [Biden] didn’t have to go into it. But it is a reality that Trump is in the race.”
Christopher Cadelago contributed to this report.
