President Joe Biden's reelection campaign is making a new digital ad buy highlighting former President Donald Trump and other Republican presidential candidates' hardline abortion stances, according to a Biden campaign aide, as the campaign looks to find its footing in the 2024 race.
The latest push to spotlight Republican efforts to restrict abortion nationwide comes amid bad poll numbers for the president. A CNN poll released Thursday showed Biden has broadly negative job ratings overall and there are widespread concerns about his age and decreased confidence among Democratic-aligned voters.
The abortion-focused ad targeted towards women will run in Florida starting Friday, the same day the state's Supreme Court is set to consider a challenge to the state's 15-week abortion ban. It highlights Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' signing of one of the nation's strictest abortion bans, which makes most abortions in the state illegal after six weeks. The six-week ban would go into effect if the 15-week ban is upheld by the high court.
The ad will also run in two other states that have some of the nation's most strict abortion restrictions -- South Dakota and Iowa, where Trump is scheduled to hold campaign events on Friday and Saturday. The ad, which will run on YouTube and Connected TV, highlights Trump touting his appointment of three US Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, as he regularly does on the campaign trail. It also takes aim at South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who has criticized some of his GOP rivals for not endorsing a 15-week abortion ban.
The digital ad buy is part of a larger 16-week, $25 million campaign.
The Biden campaign continues to signal protecting abortion access will be a key part of its reelection pitch to voters as Republicans struggle to navigate appealing to a base pushing to restrict abortion access in the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade without alienating more moderate voters.
"As Donald Trump visits states where women are suffering the consequences of his extreme, anti-abortion agenda, this ad reminds voters in states that have passed some of the most extreme abortion bans of Trump's key role in appointing conservative justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade," Biden's campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, said in a statement to CNN.
Outside of touting his role in overturning Roe, Trump largely steers clear of abortion on the campaign trail and has privately blamed abortion hard-liners for the party's lackluster 2022 midterm results. Failed Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon said recently that Trump advised her during her campaign to "talk differently about abortion," as she took a hardline approach on the issue and said she opposed exceptions for rape or incest during her bid to unseat Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer last year. Trump has said he supports exceptions for rape, incest and when the life of the mother is in danger.
Trump and DeSantis both routinely dodge questions from reporters on the campaign trail about whether they would sign a national abortion ban and at how many weeks into a pregnancy they would support such federal legislation. Trump has said he believes the federal government should play a role in restricting abortion but has not specified what kind of federal legislation he would push for or support if he were to be reelected next year. Trump also rankled some anti-abortion activists when he described the six-week Florida ban that DeSantis signed into law as "too harsh."
